


Glace Noire

by pandabomb



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Anal Fingering, Badass Katsuki Yuuri, Blood and Violence, Blow Jobs, Casual Sex, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Cigarettes, Clothed Sex, Condoms, Confident Katsuki Yuuri, Dancer Katsuki Yuuri, Dom/sub Undertones, Eros Katsuki Yuuri, Explicit Sexual Content, Face-Fucking, Flirting, Foot Massage, Foreplay, Frottage, Gloves, Grinding, Gun Kink, Gun Violence, Intrigue, Italian Mafia, Lace Panties, Lingerie, M/M, Mafia AU, Mafia Victor Nikiforov, Murder Husbands, Mutual Pining, Pakhan Victor Nikiforov, Porn With Plot, Quickies, Russian Mafia, Seduction, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Work, Stripper Katsuki Yuuri, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Threats of Violence, Victor Nikiforov Is In Love, Victor Nikiforov is Extra, Victor is a THOT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-21 18:01:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14920241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandabomb/pseuds/pandabomb
Summary: Under the thump of a slow, throbbing bass, a dancer with black hair and blood-red lips takes the stage. One hand grips the pole as his body traces the floor in a languid circle.Viktor's eyes follow the curving path of those golden, sculpted legs like a viper to a pulse.[Mafia, stripper AU written 100% for that noir aesthetic.]





	1. Glace Noire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love YOI. Where's the movie????? 
> 
> I tried to be clear where languages changed in dialogue. Anything not written in English has hoverable text for easy translation.
> 
> Please enjoy!

“You _bastard_.”

Viktor’s face, shrouded in darkness, sparks in firelight as he lights a cigarette.

The man, nearly naked in the Moscow night, scrambles on his hands and ass in the dirt until his bare back hits concrete. “You… son of a whore!”

Tobacco smolders red and alive; Viktor takes a deep hit, glances back up, and waves his match until it snuffs out. The grey-black smoke is just barely visible in the milky moonlight, a ghostly paleness easing through the sky-high steel rungs of the construction site.

Despite the uselessness of it, the old man continues: “Do you hear me, Vitya? Your mother was a cheap, vile, gaping slut, and your father was an imbecile with just enough of a salary to bend her over—”

“Arkady, please,” Viktor says slowly, words easing out with the smoke. He steps forward lightly—no need to stomp when your shoes are Ferragamo—before coming to a stop just in front of the man’s feet. He squats and exhales smoke in Arkady’s face. “Whores are hardworking citizens, no? After all, one delivered you to me. Promptly and cleanly.”

At the sight of the man’s crusty, unmoisturized knuckles, Viktor’s expression twists into a distasted sneer.  

“Although, seeing you now, I regret not paying her extra to have you gift-wrapped.”

At the reminder of his nakedness, Arkady seems to lose another shred of his mind. “Your _cunt mother_ choked on cock for _200 rubles a round_ —”

“Ah ah, now you go too far,” Viktor interrupts, tapping the cigarette free of ash with black-leather-clad fingers. “My mother was worth at least twenty thousand. And she would never choke; far too unprofessional.”

“I’ll see your head crushed,” Arkady wheezes. His face turns an awful shade of scarlet. “I’ll see your body turned to pulp.”

Viktor laughs. Slides the cigarette back between his curled lips.

“—your underlings will lose their eyes—”

Viktor plucks at the briefcase’s handle, easing it out from beneath Arkady’s blue, cracked knuckles.

“—and their children will lose their tongues—”

Viktor rises to a stand, sweeping his well-conditioned hair back with one hand.

“—I will burn Moscow to the ground if I must, if only to see your corpse in flames—”

“Yura,” Viktor calls. Promptly, yet sullenly, Yuri steps forward, his long yellow-blonde hair pulled back into a high and careless bun. “Have them start the car. We’ll be late if we don’t hurry.”

Reflexively, Yuri hesitates, as though he wants to resist the order; but perhaps the sharp crinkle in Viktor’s brow hints that now is not the time for defiance. Instead, he heads to the car without a word.

“Arkady,” Viktor says, intruding upon some promise to see Viktor’s cock fed to mad dogs.

The man quiets.

Viktor smiles.

“Thank you for your business. You, your brother, and his quaint little boys’ club have been quite helpful to us—except when you didn’t pay your debts, of course. But these routing numbers that you have so helpfully delivered—” Viktor lifts the briefcase, hooked on his thumb; “—will ensure that nothing remains unpaid between us.”

With that, Viktor turns to head back to the limousine. Behind him, the quiet _click_ of unlocking safeties sounds both familiar and ominous.

Yet even with a naked, disgraced man facing three automatic pistols behind him, Viktor thinks that the slam of the car door carries a far greater sense of finality.

“You’ll have him killed?” Yuri asks, surprised. Such a choice would be bold: Arkady’s brother is the Pakhan of the largest rival group in Moscow, a group that—for now—exceeds Viktor’s own in both wealth and influence in the capital city.

“Oh, no. Too sloppy,” Viktor replies. The limousine revs awake and begins rolling slowly from the night-shrouded construction zone. “He’ll go to the CIA. That way, his brother will piece together a useful story, and the Americans won’t find any use for him.”

“Hmph,” Yuri grumbles—a sound he makes when he doesn’t want to admit that he likes something. “Fine. But we can’t afford so much contact with the Americans. Not until our position in Moscow is secure.”

“Yuratchka,” Viktor says fondly, a smirk smearing along his lips. “You said ‘we.’ Do you finally see me as a comrade? A friend? Or perhaps… _family_?”

That last word, predictably, enrages Yuri past reason. “I see you as a _pain in my ass_.”

“I’m sorry, but I must decline. Now and always, you are a baby brother to me.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Yuri scoffs, reddening and cringing at the innuendo. “Don’t you have an appointment to prepare for? With these—spaghetti eaters?”

Viktor lifts Arkady’s (scuffed, tasteless) briefcase, takes out the papers, and slides them into his own (Prada, timeless) carrying case. They will have to burn the other case—both to tie up loose ends and because, aesthetically, it does not deserve to exist any longer.

With the routing numbers laid neatly inside, Viktor takes out a crisp beige file, shuts the case, and places it by his foot. He browses the new file as he says, idly, “Yura, I must ask you to refrain from calling our Crispino guests ‘spaghetti eaters,’ or any other variety of lazy yet spiteful ethnic insult.”

Again, Yuri scoffs. “And if I won’t?”

Viktor’s eyes glide up from the file slowly. Outside, the lights of Moscow fly by, blinking red and yellow in their periphery. “Then you can’t come to the party.”

Another scoff; the boy is as unsurprising as ever. “Psh. As if I care about some stupid—”

“At Glace Noire.”

The mention of Moscow’s most luxurious, in-demand club has Yuri falling abruptly and sourly quiet.

“I reserved the Obsidian Room. There will be dancers, an open bar, and…” Viktor lets Yuri wait, just a beat. “I even invited that DJ you like.”

Yuri’s eyes sparkle with a new urgency. “You mean DJ—”

“I truly don’t know or care what his name is. But I know _you_ do,” Viktor interrupts. “So you’ll either behave yourself, or go home.”

The sparkle in Yuri’s eyes slides into surliness again. “Dancers, you said.”

“That’s right.”

“And alcohol.”

“Of course.”

“Then someone will need to make sure you don’t get carried away,” Yuri scowls, sliding his arms into a cross. “There’s nothing your stupid, booze-guzzling ass loves more strippers.”

“I resent that,” Viktor says with a laugh. “Poledancing is an art, you know—”

“I truly _don’t_ know, or care,” Yuri says. “But I know _you_ do. Too much for your own fucking good.”

Viktor beams. “Then I can only be grateful that I have such a caring friend to look out for me.”

The look of sheer rage that eclipses Yuri’s face is flawless.

-//-

Viktor’s father, a plain yet diligent man, had always surrounded himself with pretty, luxurious things.

When Viktor’s mother would bring him to his father’s spacious flat, telling him to go off alone while the adults were not to be disturbed, Viktor would traipse through his father’s closets—each lined with mahogany; he’d never forget that scent—and touch the beautiful silk suits, their weave sleek and shiny under his tiny palms. He would brush his fingertips over all the treasures in his father’s drawers: the gently ticking Rolexes, the platinum and steel cufflinks, the crisply-folded pocket linens, the draped ties with their fabrics like melted butter.

But Viktor never slept there. He never took meals at his father’s table, nor sat on his father’s knee. From even a cursory a glance, it seems he hasn’t inherited any of his father’s features at all.

Which is fine.

Viktor has his mother’s looks—her quick wit, her survival instincts, her business sense. From her, especially, Viktor has inherited a willingness to do whatever it takes to earn (or seize) whatever he wants.

And of his father, all Viktor really remembers is the fashion.

Viktor unclasps the topmost button of his shirt (its weave sleek and shiny under his palm) as the limousine rolls up the hotel’s driveway. Underneath the golden porte-cochère, Viktor spots the reddish beacon of Mila’s auburn hair, loose and wavy as it curls beneath her jawline. As always, she’s sleek and pressed in a dark ensemble: shin-high, thick-heeled boots; a black, knee-length skirt with slits up the sides; a tight, geometric, wine-red blouse with sheer cutouts; and finally, a black cashmere peacoat—undoubtedly scented with perfume, tobacco, and the barest hint of gunpowder.

The car stops and Viktor steps out. “Milotchka.”

“Vitya,” Mila says with a half-smile, nodding in Viktor’s direction.

Yuri climbs out after Viktor. A spark of mischief glint in Mila’s eyes; there’s nothing she likes better than to tease, and Yuri makes himself an easy target.

“Hello to you as well, Yuratchka,” she says, as gleeful as a cat watching a downed bird. “Have you had your vitamins today? Drank your milk? You’re looking even scrawnier than usual.”

“Baba,” Yuri greets, the syllables grinding out from clenched teeth. His gaze locks onto her upper lip. “I see you finally got that mustache waxed. What a shame—now there’s nothing to distract from the rest of your face.”

“Oh, Yura,” Mila says, beaming. She loops an ironclad arm around Yuri’s neck; Viktor doesn’t miss how heavily Yuri flinches from the impact. “I did it for your sake! It would be _so_ unfair of me to have any facial hair when you can’t grow it yourself—”

“Mila,” Viktor cuts into their bickering. “Where are our guests?”

“Inside,” Mila says, jerking a thumb over her back. “But…” She releases the flailing Yuri and checks the narrow, sleek silver watch on her wrist. “It’s on the hour, so—”

“Mr. Nikiforov!” A woman’s voice rings out.

Viktor’s threadbare smile widens as the twins emerge from the lobby.

The Crispino twins are the children of the eldest son of the Crispino family, a pair of heirs in Sicilian black-market royalty. However, the elder twin Sara will never inherit or grow into any official mafia role; that honor is reserved for her brother Michele—who, according to all accounts, has clung and cried to his sister’s skirt since the day they could walk.

If Viktor were a gambling man—and he is, often, to great benefit—he would put all his pot on Sara being the eventual Godfather, albeit never in any official fashion.

Still, Viktor obeys convention for the moment, walking forward to acknowledge Michele first—switching to their shared language of English. “Hello, Mr. Crispino. Welcome to Moscow. Ah, and the lovely lady! _Ciao bella_ ,” he calls out, earning a grin from Sara and an immediate scowl from Michele, who skulks just behind her shoulder.

Just in front of the lobby’s wide doorway, Viktor bows to kiss the back of her glove—kid-skin, perhaps? Yet the texture feels off against his lips—and Sara smiles even wider.

“Mr. Nikiforov,” Sara greets again, turning his name over with far greater warmth this time. “Please, you’ll have me blushing.”

Viktor recognizes this as a coy lie, but appreciates the attempt anyway.

At his sister’s flirting, Michele keeps quiet, yet his surliness is plain: he avoids any sustained eye contact, instead watching how the Crispino security detail enters the car, checking it for bombs or visible weapons or whatever else kind of peril bodyguards look for. Viktor supposes he could be offended; the implication here, of course, is that the Crispinos do not trust him. But something about the efficiency of the bodyguards’ sweep rings of routine yet paranoid normalcy.

One glance at Michele Crispino—who reddens in apparent anger, frustration, or plain discomfort before swiftly looking away—and Viktor can tell he’s….jumpy, to say the least.

Sara, however, utterly ignores both her brother and the bodyguards. Where her brother’s shoulders are tense and high, hers are squared and level. “Thank you for your hospitality. It’s our first time in Russia, so we’re grateful to have a local take us around.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’m a ‘local’ yet,” Viktor admits. As the bodyguards file out, one then two, Viktor offers Sara an arm; she takes it with the glad, practiced grace of a woman accustomed to such gallantry. “I’m from St. Petersburg, originally. But Moscow has been my adopted city for two years now.”

“Well, then you definitely know Moscow better than we do,” Sara replies.

“And how are you finding it thus far?”

“As they said we would,” Sara says.

“Cold and dark?” Viktor asks.

Sara grins. “Welcoming.”

They halt a few steps in front of the car door. Yuri stands by it, saying nothing. His bland face is only betrayed by a slightly twitching vein at his neck—likely exacerbated by Mila’s smug, side-eyed smirk as she stands to the boy’s right.

“You’ve met Mila, yes?” Viktor asks.

“We have,” Sara responds, smiling warmly. “She picked us up, helped us get settled in.”

“As ordered, boss,” says Mila, slicing a dry salute into the crisp night air.

“And this here is my protégé, Yuri Plisetsky,” Viktor introduces. “He’ll be assisting your security detail tonight. He performs many of my odd jobs and errands.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sara says, holding out one elegantly bent hand.  

Yuri looks about ready to explode in pent-up viciousness, yet somehow manages to hold it together. He takes Sara’s hand, albeit limply, and offers an appropriate level of respect in a bent head and slight bow. His unwillingness to kiss Sara’s hand—or even to speak to her at all—grates on Viktor’s patience, but it seems to put Michele in better spirits. On his turn, he greets Yuri with a not-entirely-sour nod.

Introductions finished, Yuri opens the car door. His every breath seems to urge them to just hurry up and _leave_ already.

“Shall we, lady?” Viktor purrs, re-adjusting his grip on Sara’s arm. “There’s a welcome party in wait.”

Sara smiles, eyes shining in the dim lighting. Their color is a shock: an indigo so deep and sharp, it slides into lilac. “We shall.”

Annoyingly, Michele hurries in first, casting a quick and fiery glare Viktor’s way before he’s settled inside. As Sara steps through the limo’s door, gliding to her seat smoothly, Viktor notes that her black dress and eggshell purse are both the latest Versace; the tantalizing perfume lingering on the arm of his suit jacket can only be Chanel.

Yet while a plush bounty of fur is draped over her arms and shoulders, beneath it, Sara’s bronze skin prickles in the Moscow breeze.

Viktor turns to Mila and says, in quiet Russian: “The fur is fake.”

He climbs into the car. Yuri slams the door shut behind him.

Outside, Mila catches Yuri’s eye, jerks her head to the side, and leads both him and the Crispino’s security detail to another black car. Only one security escort remains with the twins in the limousine, allowing them the semblance of total privacy.

Sara watches Mila walk away through the tinted glass. “Wait—isn’t Mila coming with us?”

Viktor offers her a placating smile. “We’ll see her there.”

Sara’s lips curl down and out, into a pout. “Why can’t she ride with us?”

“Well,” Viktor says, stalling as he thinks. He didn’t expect Sara to take such a liking to Mila so quickly. “I want to make sure that everything is perfect when we arrive, and I only trust Mila to do it. If she came with us, she wouldn’t be much fun—only talking on the phone and bossing around my little Yura.”

“Hm. All right,” Sara says—satisfied, but only just.

The limousine merges into traffic. Michele stares outside, at this point obviously in a thick, uncrackable sulk. Sara, for all she expressed excitement to see Moscow, opts instead to keep looking at Viktor with those startlingly purplish eyes.

“Will Mila be at our table?” As she speaks, Sara’s legs fall daintily to the side, ankles crossing above her short boots. “I want to spend more time with her! It’s refreshing to have another girl to talk to. I’m always surrounded by so many _men_.”

Viktor’s smile slides into a tense, teasing smirk. “Please don’t tell me you’re tired of men, _bella_. My heart would break.”

“I’m not!” Sara huffs a soft laugh. “Well… maybe a bit. But only the usual kind—the stuffy, grumpy ones who only care about football, finance, and making sure the ladies never have any fun.”

It’s all too obvious what she means as her brother tenses even further, leaning heavily against the door and window.

Viktor ignores it as pleasantly as he knows how—smiling, teasing, winking, laughing. “I assure you, Miss Crispino. I am not of that kind.”

“Mm,” Sara says, an appraising sound that vibrates out from behind pale matte lipstick. Her eyes rake down and over Viktor’s form, yet there’s no heat; her gaze simply steps from one detail to the next, a lazy catalogue of his suit’s purposeful creases and the bend of his elbow and the way he allows his hair to fall foppishly over one eye.

“No,” Sara says—knowingly, quietly. “You don’t seem that type at all.”

Viktor offers her a drink. She accepts, passing it to her brother, who receives it wordlessly.

The limousine rolls on.

Outside, Moscow shines jeweled and jaundiced, a mosaic of kaleidoscopic neons and amber streetlights. The flimsy winter sun has long fled behind walls of concrete and glass, rendering the city streets a maze of thin black ice. In the unruly, manic joy of the urban night, the city seems to revel in its own potential for disaster: its hidden dangers, pitfalls, and deathtraps of all sorts and sizes.

Every so often, when he can drift from conversation, Viktor watches it all glimmer behind glass. Lesser men would be cowed of the risks. But Viktor has faced danger countless times in his short life, and his specialty—the life he has forged for himself—is gliding just above that black ice, balancing on the knife’s edge between conquest and total ruin.

-//-

Glace Noire is not as Viktor remembers.

It’s far better.

The black furniture of Glace Noire reflects glimmering beams of sapphire, cinnabar, and violet. The tables are ebony; the stages, complete with stainless steel poles, are swathed and framed in velvet the color of pomegranate seeds. Overhead, countless chains of blackened Swarovski crystals glint and clink like thousands of icicles; underfoot, black marble is only interrupted by the occasional sprawl of black leopard-pelt rug.

Or—it usually is.

Mila works quickly.

But Glace Noire’s real draw isn’t in its luxurious interiors. For one, their drinks are fantastic, with inventive cocktails served in crystal glasses and the best liquors poured through ice chutes. After they enter through the VIP entrance, Sara orders the club’s most popular concoction—a charcoal lemondrop on the rocks, elderflowers and blackberries suspended in the ice cubes—after repeated reassurances from the bartender that it won’t stain her teeth black.

Mila laughs at her concerns, promising: “Don’t worry. If you need it, we’ll have someone lick your mouth clean.”

If it hadn’t been Mila saying it, Viktor thinks Michele might have combusted on the spot.

Not that the man isn’t irate and churning with fury regardless.

“I’ve noticed something interesting,” Sara drawls. Viktor sees her grin from the corner of his eye—the dancer on stage is _quite_ distracting—while she leans towards him along the couch, placing most of her weight on an armrest in the corner between them. Despite her body language, Viktor keeps sharp; he suspects that Sara isn’t actually a lightweight. “Can you guess what it is?”

Viktor dons his most artfully clueless expression. “Hm…what is it, I wonder…” He swirls his own drink, vodka neat.

Sara’s smile tightens, like she’s onto his ruse. “Here’s a hint. It has my brother _furious_.”

“Why, Miss Crispino,” Viktor says dramatically. He places a gentle hand on her arm. “I would _never_ want to anger an honored guest.”

She glances down at his hand—his fingers tracing delicate pirouettes over her bronze skin—for a long, meaningful moment. “…Fair enough. _That_ is one reason why Mickey is so angry. But it’s not the one I mean.”

Viktor lifts his hand away, waving it casually. “Pardon me, but it seems that your brother can be quite disagreeable. I would ask him why, but….”

Across the table, Michele is sending Viktor a ceaseless stream of death-glares. The music is too loud for him to overhear their conversation, but it doesn’t matter; it’s baldly apparent that Michele wishes not just for Viktor’s demise, but for the death of everyone in the room.

Sara barks one loud, open laugh, and something about it strikes Viktor as incredibly Italian—like a burst of Mediterranean sunshine. “Yes, Mickey _disagrees_ , generally, as a personality trait. I would say family is the exception, but then I’d give him too much credit.”

Viktor nods, placing a fingertip against his mouth thoughtfully. “So, he does not like people. That is an understandable and relatable viewpoint. Has he considered a dog? They’re wonderful, far better than humans—”

“You are changing the subject,” Sara teases. Her accent is perceptible, but not thick.

Viktor shrugs with mild mischief; takes another sip. “Ah, sorry. You were saying—”

“I’ve noticed something interesting.”

“Yes, that.”

“This thing I noticed…” Sara finishes her drink. Smacks her lips a tiny bit. “It has Michele speechless with anger. But it has _me_ very happy.” She holds up her empty glass in an obvious signal.

“Could it be…” Viktor trails off, crossing his legs and letting his foot bounce.

“Miss?” A beautiful young man, almost naked if not for the exquisite, dusky-rose lingerie clinging to his pale skin, interrupts them timidly. “May I get you another drink?”

“…That?” Viktor finishes.

Nearly every single server, dancer, and bartender in the club that night is a beautiful man in lingerie. Viktor knows the owner of the club—as he should; he’s a major financier of the place—and he knows the ins-and-outs of financial persuasion even better. It’s just a matter of dropping a large enough carrot on a short enough string, and the ass will always plod along.

The real challenge, then, had been finding the boys. Gay clubs in Moscow have talent, but they don’t have the eagerness to branch out from their safe venues, and they aren’t so straightforward as to be convinced with mere money, not if their wellbeing is at stake. More had to be recruited from dancers’ troupes, modeling agencies, and escort services.

But they’d found them—some way, somehow.

“I still don’t understand what has your brother so upset,” Viktor continues blandly, knocking back his drink. The foot he has planted on the floor presses against his briefcase; its continued presence annoys him, but Yura flounced off to drool over the DJ before he could even take Viktor’s coat let alone his personal effects. “Glace Noire always hires beautiful staff.”

Sara utters a quick “Another of the same, thanks,” and hands the server a bill before he walks off with their empty glasses.

As he leaves, Sara blatantly and lingeringly watches him go.

Viktor quirks a sly smile. “I take it you’re enjoying yourself?”

Once the man’s lace-covered ass disappears, Sara’s head snaps back—gaze locking onto Viktor’s with an unexpected, unbridled intensity. “Mr. Nikiforov.”

“Viktor.”

“Viktor,” Sara repeats. She places a powerful, heavy hand on his forearm; _squeezes_. “I will be honest.  This is the greatest gift you could have given me.”

Viktor beams. “I’m glad! Anything for you, _bella_ ,” he says with a wink.

Sara leans back into her seat, removing her hand from Viktor’s arm with a slow drag. “Is this supposed to show me how good of a supplier you are?” Her tone stays playful, side-winding, as her fingers toy with her purse-strings in the dark. “How you can get me whatever I want, no matter how troublesome or controversial it may be?”

Viktor restricts his expressions to a casual air; it’s still too early to discuss business particulars. He waves a hand and says, “It was no trouble, truly. And as for the controversy….” He glances to Michele—who is still brooding with a palpable intensity on the couch across the table—before looking back to Sara. “You must agree it’s worth braving, yes? We must face a little disapproval if we are to find any satisfaction in this short, dreary life.”

Sara grins again. “Well said. If only I could toast to it.”

Without a drink to nurse, she reaches into her purse and withdraws her lipstick.

“In a moment, then,” Viktor says. For a beat, he watches her reapply, marveling at the efficient skill of a woman gliding on lip-color with only the meager, darkened reflection of a metallic lipstick cap. “But, Miss Crispino—”

“Call me Sara,” she interrupts, speaking distractedly as she rubs her lips together. “Only fair.”

“Sara.” Viktor allows the name to float gently into the air, under-toned by the steady beats of the speakers’ bass. He wants his next words to be gilded. “I must admit: a little bird told me that you were the type of woman who would prefer _this_ sort of party.”

“A little bird, hm?” Sara caps her lipstick and stows it away with a _snap_ of the purse clasp. “I hope it’s not one that sings only to you. After all, we’re trying to become friends.”

Viktor says nothing—just leans against the armrest casually, chin resting lightly on one hand.

If he were foolish enough to expect a blush, denial, or snap of insecurity at the implication that he has cultivated informants in Crispino circles, then he would be disappointed: Sara only laughs, full and throaty. “The kind of woman I am is not a closely guarded secret. I think you need a better—ah, how should I say it in English?”

Viktor’s expression quirks wryly. “Menagerie?”

“Yes, that,” Sara says, and chuckles under her breath. Across the table, Michele shifts and huffs rather dramatically, kicking the table a bit as he obviously vies for attention; Sara glances at him for only a few seconds, then rolls her eyes. “Ignore him. Mickey is protective. And, well…afraid of men? I don’t know how to explain.”

“For twins, you’re rather opposites.”

“Only in that. We’re similar in other ways.” Sara sweeps her long hair away from her face, manicured nails flowing through nearly-black tresses. “Don’t get it wrong, Viktor. I would kill a thousand men for my brother in a heartbeat. Even if his antics do get in the way of my…maneuvering.”

“And _there_ is why your brother is so angry,” Viktor says, nodding as the server returns. After delivering the drinks, the boy in the rose lingerie lingers for a moment; Viktor slides a bill under his garter strap and gives it a reassuring pat. For that, he might deserve the annoyed glance the waiter sends him as he walks off. “Tonight, there are far too many men around, and beautiful ones at that, to thwart your _maneuvers_ entirely.”

Sara smirks, deeper and smugger than ever before. “Even if there are no men around,” she says slowly, confidently, bringing her glass close to her lips, “Mickey cannot thwart me entirely. Did your birds tell you that as well?”

“….I see. And no,” Viktor hums.

Sara huffs a satisfied laugh. “I told you. A better menagerie.”

That she disclosed such a thing at all is telling in itself: either she thinks Viktor will not tell anyone, or she is utterly undaunted by the idea of word getting out. Viktor grins conspiratorially. “Perhaps I should have hired some girls for the party after all.”

“ _Dio mio_ , no,” Sara says, shaking her head and taking a big gulp of her drink. “That would be no fun at all. I respect women way too much.”

A true laugh bursts from Viktor’s chest, loud and bright. Michele even jolts a bit at the sound. “Forgive me—how could I have been so crass? Then, a toast: to new friends, and the beautiful men hired to entertain them.”

Sara lifts her glass and one cheeky eyebrow. “Are you sure you only organized this for my sake?”

“What do you mean?” Viktor’s head tilts innocently.

Sara levels him with a bemused look. “Viktor. I wouldn’t call you subtle.”

Viktor smirks. “If you did, I’d be insulted.” He clinks their glasses, downs his drink, and licks his lower lip in vodka-warmed amusement. “You’ve caught me, _bella_. This party is also for the benefit of…” Viktor winks. “…My banker.”

Sara blinks in surprise. “Your…?”

Viktor raises his empty glass towards the stage, where a g-string-clad figure grinds on the floor—all while Mila cackles and keeps trying to shove handfuls of money between his ass-cheeks. “The illustrious Mr. Giacometti. Invited as a guest, and yet, there he is. Why did I even bother recruiting?”

Sara giggles, instantly seeming younger. “You have such strange friends!”

“I suppose,” Viktor replies. “But strange is better than boring, yes? He seems to be having fun.”

Chris notices Viktor watching and blows a kiss.

“Nothing for me?” Sara whines, lower lip jutting out and wet with drink. “Am I not the guest of honor?”

Viktor chuckles. “Of course. I can introduce you once he is finished—”

But at that moment, the song begins to fade away, and Christophe climbs down from the stage to don a loosely-tied silk robe—not for modesty, but to ensure that his bare thighs don’t stick to leather. He hugs Mila at the stage’s base, kissing her cheeks three times over before clasping her by the shoulder and cooing at her latest haircut. As Christophe toys with her hair, Mila turns to point over towards Viktor’s table—then catches Sara’s eye, grins, and motions for her to come over.

For a split-second, Sara’s teeth flash red in the scarlet-purple lights. A moment later, she stands, waves a careless hand, and says: “Watch these for me,” before rushing off, abandoning both her brother and purse at the couch with Viktor.

Viktor’s eyes shift sidelong, to the Versace purse. Then to Michele.

He’s still glaring.

“Is it so horrible?” Viktor asks, sliding close enough to be heard. “I hope I’m not torturing you too brutally, Mr. Crispino.”

Michele looks Viktor up and down as though he’s just met the Antichrist and each passing moment is confirming all his worst suspicions. “The only reason I have not left already,” he says with acid, “is because I’ve been told forging a business relationship with you is advantageous to the family.”

Viktor places a fingertip against the side of his mouth. “And you’ll do exactly as you’ve been told.”

The dig goes straight over the younger man’s head. “Yes,” Michele says. And nothing more.

“Hm,” Viktor hums, leaning back on the black leather. He places his empty glass onto a passing waiter’s tray without looking. “Well. Feel free to enjoy the bar. I made sure there were a few clothed employees just for you—if you haven’t already noticed.”

With that, they begin to mutually ignore each other. It’s an ideal situation. Viktor knew from the beginning, when he first learned that Sara was coming along with her brother, that no amount of small-talk or niceties would make him a friend; icy allies is the best he could hope for.

Viktor spots Sara returning, bringing Mila and Christophe in her wake, so he shifts back to his former spot on the couch across the table. Resettling, Viktor glances at Sara’s purse and nudges his own briefcase with the side of his foot, just to make sure they’re both still there; then he sits back, propping one leg up on the other and laying an outstretched arm over the couch’s back.

Sara purposefully plops down right next to her brother, whose expression instantly—and, to Viktor, rather pathetically—softens. Mila sits at Sara’s other side as Christophe all but melts into the spot beside Viktor.

“ _Cheri_ ,” he greets, embodying sultry fondness and dewy, golden skin. “Why didn’t you warn me there would be a pole tonight? I was _completely_ unprepared.”

Viktor—who sees for himself how Christophe is fully waxed with a glowing, even tan—offers a conciliatory expression, placing a tender hand on Christophe’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, friend. I have failed you.”

“Mm. Quite,” Chris drawls. He leans closer to lower his voice; says, in French: “ _But I’ll tell you how you can make it up to me_.”

Viktor smiles, unsurprised. He and Chris haven’t fooled around since quite early into their relationship, and even then, only a few times. Although their bodies are compatible, every sexual encounter always turned, exhaustingly, into a competition to see who could exhibit lesser emotional investment and greater gag control. Viktor hasn’t particularly yearned to repeat the scenario.

Still—Chris is a friend, and Viktor enjoys a good flirt. He leans close and replies: “ _Whatever you wish of me, darling. But first_ …”

“Hm?” Chris prompts, two fingers walking up Viktor’s knee.

Viktor slides the briefcase towards Chris with a single foot. “ _The routing numbers_ ,” he says, retaining his sugary tone. “ _Be a dear, won’t you?_ ”

Chris glances down at the briefcase, then back up to Viktor. Pouts.

“ _Christophe_ ,” Viktor chides. He leans forward; as his lips graze Christophe’s earlobe, his tone drips with a contrived, syrupy countenance—bee’s venom drenched in honey. “ _Please? I can trust no one else_.”

Chris sighs. Grabs hold of the briefcase; hauls it into his lap.

“ _Same passkey?_ ” He asks in a mumble, spinning the dials testily.

“ _Yes_ ,” Viktor says, lifting one eyebrow. “ _Can’t you do that elsewhere?_ ”

“Hey, Chris!” Mila pelts the side of Chris’s face with a martini olive. “Didn’t you promise Sara a private dance?”

It seems Viktor has underestimated his friend’s level of inebriation, because Chris perks up like _he’s_ the one being offered the dance. He shoves the briefcase back into Viktor’s hands before exclaiming, “So I did! Don’t worry, my beauties—the ravishing Christophe Giacometti _never_ disappoints.”

The moment Christophe’s body jolts from the couch—his robe hitting the marble floor, crumpled and forgotten—Viktor knows he’s entirely a lost cause.

What follows is a loud and cumbersome struggle: Mila chanting loudly for the dance; Chris attempting to _deliver_ said dance; Michele angrily shoving Chris away while also avoiding any wisp of bare skin (a Sisyphean ordeal); and Sara angrily shoving at her brother, all interspersed with yelling, pointing, and distinctly Italian arm-waving.

Viktor receives a new drink. Sips it. While the glass is the same style as his previous drinks, this time it’s only still-water; no need to let his mind go dull, nor to let others know that he’s ceased drinking for the night.

Chris, who has always been fond of challenges—not to mention to danger—is so entertained by Michele’s flailing discomfort that he tries to shift the lap dance onto him. While the whole affair _would_ be fun to watch, in theory, Viktor must admit to himself that he tires of Michele’s antics. He finds the man as much a fuss as he is a bonafide bore. Anyone who scowls at so much lace and gorgeous skin on display cannot possibly offer Viktor any sort of positive experience.

Under the thump of a slow, throbbing bass, Viktor releases a heavy sigh.

A dancer with black hair and blood-red lips takes the stage. One hand grips the pole as his body traces the floor in a languid circle.

Unlike Chris—who surely climbed onstage with nothing but his thong on—this dancer seizes the spotlight with some coverage: a white button-up shirt, wide and long enough to give the impression of a slight, slender frame. Under the flashing lights, the shirt shines blue, pink, violet; it complements the tinge of gold and glitter on the dancer’s face, calves, and creamy thighs.

Viktor’s eyes follow the curving path of those golden, sculpted legs like a viper to a pulse.

The bass picks up. The dancer quickens the pace.

Two hard steps against the stage, and the man is aloft. His thighs—bare, glowing, generous—cling to the pole with an unmatched artistry, every clench of muscle a viola’s string plucked. As one leg adjusts to take the man’s entire weight, the other leg bends up, stretching parallel to the pole and pushing the tail of the white shirt just barely above his ass.

Where the fabric has lifted, Viktor catches a glimpse of sheer black fabric.

Another thump of the bass, and the dancer shifts again.

If the room were silent, Viktor would surely hear the double _click_ of the dancer’s black heels hitting the stage; but clamorous as it is, the movement only seems soft, conveying a lightness of step belied by the heavy, platformed, designer manacles strapped around the man’s feet and ankles. The dancer's back slowly slides down the pole, feet planted yet slightly out-turned—Viktor recognizes the ballet training with a slight gasp—and his head starts to fall back, one hand rising to undo the first button of his shirt.

Viktor’s gaze follows that hand: first button loose; then the second, and the third.

The dancer slides to the floor and into a split. Elegant fingers trace slowly over his sternum, gliding up to his collarbone and neck before curling to rest at his cheek. His facial features are understated, yet elegant, with high cheekbones, a slightly upturned nose, and small yet plump lips swept over with blood-red lipstick. The boldness of his lips contrasts stunningly with eyes as dark and fathomless as twin smudges of coal.

Eyes that, from across the room, catch and seize hold of Viktor’s.

Both the bass and his own heartbeat roar in Viktor’s ears.

A slight smile floats onto the dancer’s face as his hand sneaks back down, roaming over his shirt and down his belly until he’s palming the front of his obscured panties. Only when he starts to touch himself does he seem to lose that gorgeous, confrontational audacity—his simmering-onyx gaze flitting bashfully away.

Viktor gulps his water down in heavy mouthfuls.

The dancer wriggles another button free. His hands push against the shirt as though it’s stifling; in the widened gap of fabric, Viktor spies a luxurious spider-web of straps, a gorgeous maelstrom of black ribbon against golden skin.

Without looking away—as if he would be _capable_ —Viktor raises two fingers, summoning a server within moments.

“Sir?” The server asks, bending low to speak at Viktor’s ear.

“Who is that?” Viktor asks.

For a moment, the server is confused: “Who—?” But either the context or Viktor’s encroaching, broiling annoyance clues him in. “Ah….He goes by the stage name of Eros.”

 _Eros_. Viktor could break down laughing, the name is so fitting. But for the moment—as he watches Eros flip to mount the pole (from the floor, in a split) using only the strength of his thighs—Viktor opts for a different path.

“Another,” he says, blindly offering up his empty glass.

The server takes it without a word. Wisely, he waits.

“Tell me,” Viktor says, “What does Eros prefer?”

“Zyr,” the server replies. “But, sir….” he continues, hesitant, “I’ve heard that Eros is also partial to champagne.”

Viktor’s lips curl into a pleased bow. “Thank you. The Zyr, for now—and a bottle of Krug to his dressing room.”

“Of course, sir. The 1988 or the Clos d’Ambonnay?”

A tense, wordless moment overshadows them.

The server stammers out: “I-I apologize, I didn’t mean to imply—the d’Ambonnay; o-of course. Please excuse me.”

At last, he leaves—but not before easing a handful of crisp bills from Viktor’s raised fingers.

On stage (finally, _finally_ ), the white shirt slides off Eros’s shoulders and down his arms. Beneath is exactly what Viktor craved and hoped for: a tight, golden-hued body with a lean waist and sturdy chest; a network of black straps and sheer fabric, pressing and criss-crossing over that glowing, sumptuous skin. A cluster of exquisite, glittering crystals cascade from the man’s shoulders to his cinched, elegant waist.

Red and gold, bound in black—a dream in high heels and bloodied lips.

Watching him, Viktor may lose track of time. Just a bit.

The dull plod of seconds into minutes only resumes its usual schedule when a voice slithers into Viktor’s ear: “Quite a beauty.”

“Yes,” Viktor breathes out. It takes him another dumbstruck moment to realize that the voice belongs to Chris.

“But seems a little….innocent, no?” Chris remarks, voice slurring. A little hiccup even escapes under his breath. “Part of the allure, I suppose. The act.”

A server approaches the stage. Eros reins in his newest position—a midair, horizontal stretch entirely supported by the pole between his breath-taking thighs—to receive the server’s gift: a hefty stack of bills and a tall shot of Zyr.

 _About damn time_ , Viktor thinks. An odd creep of— _something_ ; he refuses to call it nerves—scratches at the edge of his mind while he watches Eros bend down and interact with the server. As the server speaks, he points back at Viktor and motions to both the money and the glass; as Eros listens, he slides the bunch of bills away, tucking them to join their crumpled fellows under the tightest straps at his ankles.

Finished explaining, the server leaves. Eros takes the shot-glass and slithers to a stand. His eyes, bottomless and singed-black, find Viktor’s yet again.

Viktor’s spine goes rigid. His hands clench.

One moment, Eros perks the glass up in Viktor’s direction—smiling with a devastating, seductive confidence—and in the next, he throws the shot back, red mouth stretched open wide around the glass.

He doesn’t even seem to swallow at all. The liquor just….slides down his throat.

Chris audibly gasp-chokes on his drink in delighted shock. “Not so innocent,” he says thinly, voice laced with strangled laughter. He leans into Viktor’s sightline, blocking his view. He teases, with a drunken grin: “A- _ha_ , what a blush you have on, _cheri_. Shall I get you backstage later?”

Viktor pushes Chris’s face away with the back of his hand. “No, thank you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t need your help.” After a beat, Viktor adds, “Not with _that_ , anyway.”

Chris’s eyes fly skyward. “Only _you_ would make me leave a party like _this_ for some work errand—”

“What errand?” Sara slurs loudly. She is, at this point, obviously and truly drunk. “No errands! Viktor, you mean boring man, I won’t let you take these two from me. They’re my favorites!”

“Careful, Sarinka,” Mila mutters, steadying Sara’s hand. Already some of her cocktail is sliding down the bare skin of her arm. “You’re spilling.”

Chris spots the liquid gliding down Sara’s skin with the gleaming eyes of a predator. “Waste not,” he chirps—then shimmies over to grasp her wrist and lick it all away.

In rushed, rage-blind sloppiness, Michele’s fist only _partially_ connects to Chris’s cheek.

Mila and the nearby Crispino security detail descend on them instantly, trying to wrench Michele away from Chris. But even they are no match for the swift retaliation of Michele’s sister, who throws her drink on her brother so quickly that the glass appears a multicolored blur in the club lights.

On stage, Eros spins to a stop, shoes hitting the ground. He swipes at his dewy forehead delicately. For a moment, it appears he notices the monkeyish chaos across the room, a slight quirk developing on his brow; but in another moment, he’s looking and sauntering away—heading off-stage for another dancer to take the lead.

Viktor side-eyes his companions.

The table clatters from a stray kick. Voices holler in an incoherent din. Michele is still being dragged off of Chris, who is flushed and floored yet laughing hysterically. Mila clasps Sara around the waist, halting her from descending on her brother in a cold fury; Sara screeches about overprotectiveness and machismo stupidity and the importance of behaving well for the good of the family.

As Viktor’s party screams and squabbles—too drunk to talk shop; too sober to go home—Eros disappears behind a curtain the color of midnight.

It’s an easy decision.

Viktor picks up his briefcase, swipes the creases out of his pants, and walks off.

-//-

Heading backstage is simple. The staff recognize him and ask nothing.

Entering the hallway towards the dressing rooms is less easy. Viktor earns a few perturbed glances, yet no one seems to have the gumption to dare and question him.

Viktor slides into the dressing room silently—he knows how to subdue his footfalls, rolling his soles gradually onto the floor from the heel down—but makes sure to shut the door with a bold, audible _click_.

He both sees and hears the dancer turn at the sound, black silk-satin robe swishing softly in the near-silence. The dancer—this wondrous, exquisite man; _Eros_ —has one leg up on the rung of a chair, unstrapping his heel. The other shoe lies on the floor on its side, already removed. There are six vanities in the room, two against the walls on either side of the door and two directly across from it; Eros has laid claim to one across the room, in direct eyeline to the entryway.

Slowly, he rises from his bend. Viktor watches the elegant unwinding of his spine in profile. “ _Can I help you, Mister…?_ ”

His Russian is clunkily accented, but that isn’t what has Viktor’s face pinching into an annoyed smile. To think—the man doesn’t remember his _name!_ Just the suggestion of it sends needle-pricks of dismay down Viktor’s back.

“ _Nikiforov_ ,” he supplies, and swiftly decides (for his own sanity) that Eros is only playing coy. Considering the man’s accent, Viktor switches to English. “And yes, you can. Very much so.”

The dancer blinks, dark eyes wide and doelike. “Ah. Well.” Viktor steps forward. The dancer sets his foot down from the chair onto the floor, heel still strapped on, and sits down. “Just let me put on my slippers,” he says, seemingly oblivious. “Then I can show you back out to the—”

But before he can bend to fiddle with the buckle, Viktor reaches him—and drops down, knees and briefcase hitting the plush carpet with a soft _whump_. “Please,” he says softly, taking hold of the dancer’s feet. “Allow me.”

Eros, stunned, acquiesces without a sound. As Viktor undoes the straps of the stiletto, he notices scars and calluses that can only be attributed to a long dance career—the dark spots where blisters healed, then reformed; a certain boniness of the toes and arch indicative of long-term pressure. Despite the damage, it’s apparent that the dancer has tried his best to care for himself, however futile it may be. The skin beneath Viktor’s fingertips is soft and supple.

Viktor lets his touch slide along the man’s ankle gently, up then down, before settling onto the flushed, strained ball of his foot. Viktor’s hands dig in, massaging with intent and expertise.

A soft, subdued moan leaves the dancer’s mouth.

Viktor smiles, hums. “As I thought. Your feet must hurt, walking in such deathtraps.”

“Mr. Nikiforov, please, you don’t have to—”

“I know,” Viktor replies, contented and calm. “But I want to. As often as I can, I try to worship at the feet of perfection.”

From the top of his gaze, Viktor watches the man’s face stain red. “I don’t—I’m not…”

“Really? You don’t know?” Viktor’s brows rise. “I find that hard to believe.” His fingers drag up from the bottom of the man’s foot to his heel, his ankle again, then his calf. Even the skin of his leg is smooth and hairless, though Viktor expected no different. “I _did_ watch your routine. Very closely. You don’t move like a man who’s unaware of his power.”

“I don’t know what you—”

Viktor huffs a soft chuckle. “Please don’t lie to me, Eros. Especially not for the sake of false modesty.”

The man’s cheeks blaze crimson. “I’m _not_ ,” he says, voice timidly dipping towards a whisper. “That was…tonight is…”

Viktor hums, lowering his face to see if this skin is just as soft against his cheek.

The dancer watches this, perhaps dumbstruck, before continuing: “I’ve never really danced like that before. Not in front of an audience. I’m trained in ballet, not pole-dancing; I was so nervous and clumsy…. Please don’t flatter me.”

“Clumsy,” Viktor repeats, tone nearing a scoff. “If that was you at _clumsy_ , I fear what you’re like at peak ability. It was like nothing else existed. I couldn’t look away.”

The dancer gasps as Viktor grazes a kiss onto the plush curve of his calf. Then the inside of his right knee.

And another, climbing higher.

Two hands drop onto the soft flow of Viktor’s hair—but they don’t him shove away. “Mr. Nikiforov.”

“Viktor,” he replies; _insists_. “Please. Say it.”

“Viktor…” the man sighs. His English is lovely—notably better than Viktor’s, with an American accent—yet the gentlest vestiges of a mother-tongue remain, leaving the breathy ghosts of vowels between harsh consonants. “You shouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Viktor smiles into the bend of the dancer’s knee. “Tell me. I’m sure it’s funny.”

Above him, Viktor watches the man’s mouth purse nervously, a pink tongue darting out to wet red-stained lips. “This is a shared dressing room.”

Viktor laughs. “I wouldn’t mind being seen at your feet.”

“ _I_ would mind,” Eros replies, brows tightening into a tart frown. “Being seen alone and, and— _intimate_ with the Pakh—”

He visibly presses his own mouth shut.

Viktor grins so widely, he’s sure that he sparkles. “So you _do_ know who I am.”

The man’s face could not possibly go redder. “I’m a dancer. We gossip.”

“Believe me, I know they do,” Viktor says, briefly recalling his teenaged conservatory days. He rises to a stand, slow and purposeful, and leans into the man’s space, cradling his cheek with one sly hand. “And I know that they are cutthroat. Ruthless.” His thumb swipes over the man’s lips; the creamy texture of the man’s lipstick is velvet to the touch. “If you were seen with me, you could be accused of some very nasty things.”

Eros—both hands perched atop the chair’s armrests, as though ready to spring—looses a soft sigh against Viktor’s thumb. Yet the bait Viktor has displayed seems too much to resist completely. “…What types of things?”

“Like trying to sleep your way to the top,” Viktor says easily. “Or offering your private services in exchange for favors…” His eyes dart to the side, landing on a pile of papers hurriedly shoved onto the vanity table next to them, in Cyrillic and English both. “…Such as a new Russian visa.”

The dancer slaps a hand onto the papers, frowning deeply. “Don’t make fun of me.”

He covered the papers before Viktor could hope to see a name—perhaps something with a K?—but no matter. He only smiles, lifting one hand in a casual, innocent shrug. “I wouldn’t dream of teasing you.”

That frown remains firmly in place.

“Ah, Eros…” Viktor tilts up the man’s chin with the curl of his fingers, admiring the way that sour expression flares his upturned nose. “How lovely you are, noticing and disapproving of my dishonesty.”

At Viktor’s words, something seems to slot into place: the man’s eyes, once fluttery and wide, firm with resolve.

Abruptly, Eros stands from the chair. “For your information,” he says, picking up the visa papers and dropping them onto the floor text-down, “I don’t need your help with my application.” He steps away, walking across the dressing room at a brisk pace. “And I don’t need your help getting a job, or—or landing parts, either.”

Standing in front of the dressing room door, he lifts one hand to the doorknob—

And turns the lock.

Viktor’s chest sparks in anticipation. “Then what is it you need from me?”

Eros’s face remains charmingly pursed, but a blush returns to his cheeks. “It’s…not about need.”

Viktor’s entire body alights as Eros saunters back, bare feet silent and light on the dressing room carpet. His hands, smaller and broader than Viktor’s own, fiddle with the tie of his robe. That ruby-stained mouth goes taut as it’s bitten once again.

“Then,” Viktor says, “what is it that you _want_ from me?”

Eros stops in front of Viktor. His brown eyes, so dark even in the light as to be nearly black, draw a gradual path from Viktor’s shoes to his face—pausing just-so at Viktor’s shoulders, thighs, and bulge. One hand remains at the tie on his robe; the other carefully, purposefully rises, falling to rest on the soft fabric above Viktor’s sternum.

He pushes.

Viktor drops into the chair. The robe drops to the ground.

They waste no time.

Another grin curls its way onto Viktor’s face as Eros’s fingers thread into his hair, seizing his head and guiding him close. The man’s lips are plush and giving under the pressure of Viktor’s tongue; his mouth as he gasps tastes of champagne, the waxy hint of lipstick, and a gossamer memory of fine vodka.

Eros presses his knee onto the chair cushion—sliding his body onto Viktor’s lap, his knee into Viktor’s groin—and Viktor yanks him even closer in, fingers greedily roaming beneath the straps of his lingerie.

“Ah,” Eros huffs, tilting his head away. “Please don’t stretch it.”

“I promise nothing, _dorohaya_.”

Another huff, almost like a laugh. “This was expensive.”

One hand twists a grip in the straps, tightening them until Eros nearly whimpers; the other slides down Eros’s back, seizing a full grip of his beautiful ass. “Say the word,” Viktor murmurs; then, with a chagrined smirk: “….and the address. And I will send you many finer pieces than this.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Eros replies distractedly.

The clanks of Viktor’s belt buckle are soft yet deafening in the space between them. As Eros’s fingertips brush the fabric over Viktor’s cock, he has to resist twitching at the contact, leaning in to nibble the man’s neck and hide his state of undoing. In a swiftly descending haze of lust, Viktor registers the rhythmic twitch of Eros’s thighs astride his own; he listens to the muted, bone-deep moan emanating from Eros’s chest.

And as Eros eases Viktor’s cock from his pants—one soft, careful hand curling to grip the shaft—he shows Viktor no mercy, leaning back to put space between their chests and afford himself a much better view.

Viktor’s mouth drops open when, at once, Eros strokes his cock and swipes a hungry lick across those ruby lips.

“Tell me what you like,” Eros whispers, glancing up between Viktor’s face and his cock.

Viktor nearly snorts in response—he’s fairly certain that Eros could do whatever he wants at that point and Viktor would like it—but instead, the sound just comes out as an impatient whine. “A wetter hand.”

Eros rolls his eyes, scarlet lips pinched in a half-smile. He leans forward to reach towards the vanity, one arm stretching out past Viktor’s back.

A drawer slides open with a _sshh_ , then shuts with a _clack_.

When Eros leans back again, he’s holding two items: a bottle of lubricant and a condom. With one hand, he slides the condom under one of the many straps of his lingerie, as though it were just another wad of bills; with the other, he snaps open and dispenses the lube into his palm.

Both actions are so assured that it’s….telling.

“He warned me it was an act,” Viktor mumbles, head tilted to allow Eros access to his neck.

“Huh?” Eros breathes out—stroking again, this time with a much more comfortable grip.

“Nothing,” Viktor says.

“What, _Viktor-u_ ,” Eros goads, elongating the name with a quirk of an accent. “Do you want me to tell you that I’m new at this?”

“No,” Viktor replies casually. “Though I hope you won’t tell me you have a going rate.”

Eros’s hand halts. He levels Viktor with a dark stare.

Viktor shrugs. “Because if you do, I should know about it before we continue.”

The hand resumes its stroking—but only just. “I’m starting to think that you want me to be angry with you.”

“Nonsense,” Viktor says, leaning in to kiss beneath Eros’s ear. He peers over the man’s shoulder and down the gorgeous stretch of his back. “But, if we’re being honest…. _I’m_ starting to think that you don’t actually care what I want.”

His fingers sneak beneath Eros’s lingerie, gliding between the cheeks of his ass. As suspected, beneath the pressure of Viktor’s fingers, his hole is supple and just-so-slightly wet.

“Because _I_ think….” Viktor whispers, the tip of one finger gently breaching inside, “that all along, you’ve had a _plan_.”

A closed-mouth moan vibrates from Eros’s beautiful neck.

Viktor glances up—and is shocked by the man’s expression.

Again, Eros’s face is swarmed in a perfect glow of red. The seductive confidence of before has fled into demure, unsure apprehension; it’s as though Viktor’s teasing skipped right over a playful jab and directly onto catching the man’s hand in a forbidden honeypot.

A delicious shiver rushes down Viktor’s spine.

He catches Eros’s lips in another kiss, this one softer. Yet his finger is not soft as it sinks deeper inside.

“Oh, Eros,” he says quietly. His free hand drifts to the front of Eros’s lingerie, where the head of his erection only just peeks out from a weave of black straps. “Have you been seducing me from the beginning?”

“Not—Not _you_ ,” the man replies, nearly blurting; even in his embarrassment, his hips start to swivel atop Viktor’s hand. “But, when I dance—if I dance like _that_ , I just, I get so worked up, and—” Viktor rubs his finger within; Eros’s breath hitches. “I tried to satisfy myself beforehand, to have better control, but it was such a _rush_ , and—somehow, I knew I would end up _hoping_ —”

He cuts off, shoving his mouth against the curve of Viktor’s lower neck.

Viktor chuckles. “That someone would make you an offer.”

Instead of worrying his lips, Eros’s teeth bite down, gently, on Viktor’s skin.

Viktor tilts his head down, resting his forehead against the dancer’s. “Eros. Am I right?”

Dark eyes catch Viktor’s onto blues.

Finally—without looking away—the man nods.

Viktor removes his finger. Takes the lubricant from Eros’s grip.

As his hand slides back beneath Eros’s lingerie, it’s far slicker, nearly dripping, and Viktor can _feel_ how the man is coiled tight in anticipation. Viktor’s lips are wet too, with smeared lipstick and the slide of his eager tongue. “Tell me,” he says silkily, “what you were thinking as you danced.”

A breath rushes past Eros’s parted lips. When Viktor’s hand doesn’t move, he pushes back onto it, forcing two of Viktor’s fingers inside. “I thought about all those eyes on me,” Eros whispers. His own eyes—a duet of amber and obsidian—dart up to catch Viktor’s gaze. “I thought of all those people watching me, seeing my body on display, and _wanting_ me, so badly, but not being able to have me.”

Viktor grins. “All but a select few.” His fingers are deep now; the fabric of Eros’s lingerie, strained and stretched, is beginning to set imprints into the skin of his hand. “And what makes me so special? Is it just that I asked?”

Another finger nestles inside among the others; it’s easy, an easy fit, and Eros smiles as he rides them.

“I saw you,” Eros mutters. “In the crowd. You were watching so intently….”

“I was,” Viktor replies. He has no mind for coyness. “You were beautiful.”

“Mm.” Eros rests for a moment with Viktor’s fingers plunged deep. Viktor senses intimately how he tightens, making a desperate vice over his knuckles. “I could feel your eyes on me the whole time. So as I kept dancing, I thought….”

Viktor isn’t sure if he’s breathing. All he knows is the pinch of Eros’s teeth on his skin; the weight and slide of golden legs over the fine fabric of his suit; that rhythmic clench gripping over his fingers.

After a few beats of silence, he manages to force out: “….What did you think?”

Eros’s grin slides into a smirk. “That you would probably fuck me as hard as I need you to.”

The last thread of control in Viktor’s mind snaps. He pulls his fingers out, drawing a startled whimper from Eros before he’s ushering the man up and over the chair, onto his knees. He pushes the man’s chest down against the chair’s back, tugs the condom out from those hellish straps, and puts it on with such haste that his hands nearly tremble.

Viktor yanks aside the man’s panties, exposing his wet, soft hole to the air.

He watches, enraptured, as the rim stretches to fit around the head of his cock.

“ _Yes_ ,” Eros gasps, breathy, impatient. His hands scrabble onto the edge of the vanity’s table-top. “Oh— _Please_ —”

In the vanity’s mirror, Viktor sees that Eros’s bloodred mouth is wide open as the head of his cock slips inside.

He begins to pull out, attempting to pace himself, but Eros’s hand flies back to clasp at his hip. “Deeper,” he says, hand tugging and hole twitching. “Ah, _god_ , please, go deeper, _now—_ ”

And Viktor is only mortal, so he does as requested: wrenching forward to jolt farther in.

The motion punches the breath from Eros’s chest, along with a litany of: “Yes, god _yes_ —again—”

So Viktor does it again. And again.

With every thrust, the contents of the vanity rattle, some toppling over with the reach of Eros’s scattering hands. Viktor’s gaze flies from the beautiful, taut display of Eros’s back—defined muscles wrapped in a pitch-black weave of straps and mesh—to the even-more gorgeous view of his own cock disappearing and reappearing, over and over, from the tight clutch of Eros’s ass.

With a lick of the lips, Viktor’s hand slides around to grasp for the man’s cock—but it’s met with a slap.

“No,” Eros orders, face flushed and head shaking. “You—only focus on _one thing_.”

Viktor huffs a laugh. “This?” He says coyly—and slams deep, the impact sending out a soft _fwap_.

“Yeah,” Eros breathes. “Exactly that.”

Viktor sets up a rhythm. He stares at where they’re joined—where Eros’s tense, compact body yields for him so easily, almost as pliant and wet as the man’s champagne-flavored mouth—and allows himself to get lost in the sheer, sublime pleasure of it.

At every other thrust, the chair they’re perched upon gives a slight creak. Eros’s forehead rests on the vanity’s edge. Occasionally, his arms reach out to knock more things off the table; other times, they hang down and out of view, as though the dancer’s entire body is turning as lax and yielding as his loosened hole. Even the dancer’s gasps and moans—at first high-pitched, loud, intense—gradually ease into something softer, like the settled, subdued sounds of a man fucked into a quiet stupor.

Climax begins its slow creep like a phantom. It’s an afterthought, really, as Viktor finds himself yet again swept away by the pace of Eros’s desire and the roll of his accepting body. Fucking back onto Viktor’s cock, Eros turns his head to glance over his shoulder; there’s a gleam in his eyes, a warmth telling of deep, smug satisfaction—or perhaps even a fondness—that Viktor renders absolutely breathless.

And that’s even before Eros’s ass clenches down hard enough to make Viktor whimper.

By the time Viktor remembers what his name is, he’s dropped down and draped along Eros’s sweating back. They pant and gasp in unison.

The area around them is a mess. Random objects litter the floor; cosmetics are spilled across the carpet; Viktor’s briefcase has been kicked over, draped on its side alongside the mess of crumpled papers that must comprise Eros’s visa application. Some kind of powder is splattered all over Eros’s dropped robe.

Viktor takes in their mess with a tired, satisfied smile. “Good?” He asks, reaching for the front of the man’s lingerie.

It takes only a swipe to see the answer—Viktor’s hand slides over the lingerie and comes away sopping wet.

“Very,” Eros says, still out-of-breath.

Viktor stands up fully, the motion slipping his cock out. He gives Eros’s hole a quick check as he puts the lingerie back in place; there’s no blood or damage, though the man’s hole is puckered and flushed.

As Viktor removes and ties off the condom, Eros picks up a towel from the floor—

Just before the doorknob to the dressing room rattles.

Whoever is at the door, they must quickly realize it's locked, and the fact _infuriates_ them. Knocks and bangs rattle the door in its frame. At the noise, Eros leaps into the air in apparent horror; he then leaps into action, rubbing the towel onto Viktor’s hands before yanking it back and blotting himself dry. He reaches down to pick up any odd things that he can, including Viktor’s briefcase, which he shoves at his chest.

Viktor hardly has his cock back in his pants before Eros is rushing over to unlock the door.

“Sorry, sorry!” He calls out, twisting the lock open.

Of all people— _Yuri_ , sweating and in a foul mood, scowls from the now-open doorway. “The door was locked.”

“Oh, really?” Eros replies to Yuri’s native Russian with his hurried, clunky version, laughing awkwardly and scratching the back of his head. “I don’t know how that happened. Sorry.”

Yuri raises one pale, furious eyebrow. Drags his gaze from Eros to Viktor, farther back in the room.

“What did I say, old man.”

Viktor says nothing. Instead, he withdraws his gloves from a pocket; if he can’t wash his hands, he should at least cover them.

“ _Old man_.”

“You’re so rude,” Viktor says tartly, tugging on the end of a glove. “I don’t know half the things you say, Yura. You’re always being so mean that I’ve just learned to stop listening.”

If Eros is bewildered by their quick, clipped Russian, then he doesn’t let on; he only glances from Yuri to Viktor nervously, standing very still so as not to attract attention.

“What _is_ it with you and goddamn fucking _strippers_ ,” Yuri grumbles, kicking at the door so it _thwacks_ horridly against the wall.

“Now, Yura,” Viktor replies teasingly, unthinkingly, “we don’t speak of what happens behind locked doors.”

A vein well and truly may burst from Yuri’s forehead as he yells: “You _actually fuc_ —!”

Viktor grips his briefcase tightly as he steps forward, a strained smile on his face. Yuri’s outburst wouldn’t bother him if it weren’t for the look of sheer shame that eclipses Eros’s face, for just a split-second, before the man can reel his features back into a forced, neutral blandness.

Viktor’s tone is icy as he says: “Another word, Yura. Try it.”

For a moment, Yuri seems keen to do just that—but opts against it. Instead, he only says: “Get back. To the fucking car.”

If Viktor _weren’t_ still in something of a post-climax haze, he might find that response lacking. But this is not that time. His hackles all but visibly lower as he says, dryly, in a faux-apologetic tone, “Of course, Yura. Yes, Yura.”

But he doesn’t leave—not yet. First, he removes a small slip of paper from a jacket pocket. Eros appears about ready to die from embarrassment as Viktor walks over, leans in, and leaves a kiss and a business card on his hand.

“I hope we meet again,” Viktor says.

Eros’s eyes shift restlessly to where Yuri still glowers in the doorway, then back to Viktor’s fond, gentle smile. He slides the business card under one of the straps of his lingerie—like a condom; like the wads of cash he’d reeled in earlier that night. He nods curtly, avoiding further eye contact.

Viktor supposes it’s the best he can do, for now.

He leaves with Yuri, shutting the door silently on his way out.

-//-

Yuuri walks out the back-entrance of the thumping nightclub in plain jeans, a brown winter coat, and a disposable white face-mask.

His glasses feel comfortable and cool where they rest on the bridge of his nose. Beneath each step, under his ragged running shoes, a thin layer of frost slips and crunches into slush. His backpack—slung over both shoulders and clipped over his sternum—is heavy and full almost to bursting.

Five blocks from the club, there’s a metro station. Yuuri walks down the stairs, swipes a card, and boards a train with a red smiley-face graffitied onto the car. 

A few sleepy locals and a large group of Chinese tourists fill the space with white noise. Yuuri finds an open spot and plops down, slinging his backpack to rest between his bent, narrowed legs—a space-saving habit he picked up from the Tokyo trains.

He exits the train after precisely six stops. Then he exits the station.

Two blocks away, a nondescript car with tinted windows is stalled in wait.

Yuuri climbs in.

As the car shifts gears and eases onto the near-silent road, a phone buzzes in Yuuri’s pocket. He picks it up without looking—just a swipe of the finger on the vibrating screen.

“ _Moshi-moshi_ ,” he greets.

A woman’s voice, familiar and lyrical, asks a question he’s expecting. He answers with the phrase she wants.

“ _Hai._ _ Kare wa bōru zentai o tabeta.” _

In his backpack—shoved beneath wads of cash, an unopened bottle of Krug, and a pair of monstrous platform heels—are the contents of Viktor Nikiforov’s briefcase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HE WAS A SPYYYYYYY
> 
> But who does he work for? Did anyone help him?? It is a mystery ~ ~
> 
> Hope the "twist" of this story wasn't too obvious, lol. I do have a second part stored up in my head. It would involve Viktor globetrotting in a mad hunt to find Yuuri again - not to get revenge, but to go on a proper date. Who could forget a gorgeous man who rocked your world AND robbed you blind, all at the same time? Not Viktor.
> 
> I recommend subscribing to this story (and commenting!) if you're interested in a sequel. I won't make a new story; I'll just add a chapter here.
> 
> It's weird that this story had basically no fluff or tenderness in it, since that's what I love best about Victuuri: they're so tender and supportive of each other. Someday I'd like to write something more reflective of that, bc true love kicks ass.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	2. Interlude - Pakhan's Right Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Better late than never, huh?

Summer in Hong Kong is an oppressive, vicious stranglehold—the kind that should be accompanied by the buzz of insects, the _fwump fwump fwump_ of loose ceiling fans, and the shifting clatter of ice in a dripping glass. Yuri remembers wiling away summers like that, in his earliest years: the scent of his grandfather’s backyard, where roses bloomed; the sticky, tickling sensation of ice cream rolling down his wrist; the sound of his grandfather’s quiet swearing as yet another fly slipped past the hole-riddled window screen.

But Yuri isn’t in a gray, stuccoed, Soviet-era house outside of Moscow. He’s not with his grandfather anymore. Now, Yuri is in Hong Kong.

And he’s running.

The concrete, steel, and asphalt radiate a scorching heat. Yuri fights through the swelter, shoving through crowds, dashing across narrow side-streets, and vaulting over cars stalled in traffic. As he sprints, he desperately tries to keep his eyes fixed on the back of one man: medium-tall, plain clothes, black hair, brown eyes.

Jeans. White t-shirt. Disposable face mask.

In Hong Kong—practically invisible.

The man in the face-mask walks under a skyscraper’s overhang, momentarily ducking out of view. Yuri hurries forward, catching sight of that white t-shirt an instant later. He starts to shadow the man’s path—which, for some reason, has slowed down.

Yuri seizes this chance. Sprints harder. Closes in.

He grabs the man’s upper arm, reeling him around and yanking him back.

A man with black hair, a face-mask, and pronounced wrinkles around his eyes gives Yuri a sharp, confused glare. “怎么回事?”

Yuri’s stomach drops. “Блядь.”

He lets go of the stranger’s arm and breaks into another frantic run.

Panic and sweat drip down Yuri’s spine as his mind spins, thinking of how he can possibly salvage this. He _had_ him. This man—the stripper, the liar, the _spy_ ; Viktor’s little piggy, with his upturned nose and chunky thighs, who squealed their secrets to everyone from the CIA to MI5 to the mother-fucking Japanese Coast Guard—had been in Yuri’s grasp, or at least his sight, before he’d yet again vanished into the creaking cogs of yet another bloated, steel-coated city.

And Yuri had prepared. He’d studied the surveillance photos—not as much as Viktor, surely; but he knows the man’s face, his shape, his back, the glint in his dark eyes. After all that effort, Yuri thought he could pick the man out of a crowd easily.

But as Yuri’s head whips round and round, trying desperately to find him again, his hope slowly drains to a trickle.

A sudden force collides with the back of his head—hard, stunning, targeted.

Instinctively, Yuri’s hand flies to cradle the back of his skull. His face is tilted to the ground, chin to chest; his sunglasses slip off his face and hit the pavement. He watches some random pedestrian’s foot crunch down onto his sunglasses before he can even begin to gather his senses.

Someone just swatted the back of his head. On purpose. _Why—_

A swift glance behind, and Yuri sees him.

He’s walking into the subway station.

“Блядь!” Yuri mutters, again, with more energy. He dashes into another sprint, practically flying down the stairs of the station as that white t-shirt vanishes again. The foot traffic at the station swells like a wave; struggling through it is like swimming in a rip current, like trudging and gasping through a bog. Yuri can hardly see the bottom of the station’s first stairwell, let alone reach the railings.

Even worse—the Hong Kong commuters don’t appreciate Yuri’s efforts to jump his turn, some of them cursing and shoving right back at him as he tries to push through.

“Блядь,” Yuri mutters, watching the pig walk past the turnstiles.

Yuri leaps over a turnstile and runs on, ignoring the yells that emanate in the hall behind him.

“Блядь,” Yuri bites out, watching the pig disappear around a corner.

Yuri swings around the same corner not ten seconds later.

“ **Блядь**!”

There’s a fork in the path. Above his head, a sign for the next trains flashes the time and approaching lines. Luckily, Yuri catches it on the English turn; he reads for the next trains due to arrive, as the man will surely try to catch the next one out—one that can sweep him out of Yuri’s grasp and back into the safe, scorching anonymity of the city streets.

Yuri heads to the left, to the next platform to depart—in one minute.

He leaps onto the railing and down the stairwell. Commuters gasp and squawk as he slides past, knocking their hands, arms, and bags aside.

Yuri lands at the base of the stairwell as an automated voice drones out: “Please stand back from the doors….請不要靠近車門….” In a final effort, Yuri launches himself at the train, sending multiple commuters out of the way and onto their asses.

Yet he can only watch with wide, horrified eyes as the doors slide shut.

One of his fists collides with the reinforced glass. He pounds against it, hollering and kicking and swearing in Russian and English both.

Just inside the car, right up against the door, is the man. His face-mask is perfectly in place. His eyes are dark and unblinking. He hardly even seems to sweat. He watches Yuri scream and bang on the door, bland-faced, with no indication of even a mild expression; just a smooth, undisturbed stare.

But as the train car slides to the slowest of starts, the man finally offers a reaction to Yuri’s incoherent rage: he lifts one hand, nestles it against to his half-obscured face, and makes a little v-shaped peace sign.

Not even the screech of the departing train hurtling through the tunnel can drown out Yuri’s screams of unfiltered fury.

-//-

Yuri banged on the dressing room door over and over.

One moment, Yuri was ready to scream in someone’s face—and in the next, wide eyes, an upturned nose, and a dewy, delicate flush had snatched all the words from his throat.

Red lips. A slim yet built body, boasting a tapered waist and generous, golden thighs. Though the man was taller, something about his demeanor didn’t reflect it; his eyes, their color dark and rich, held a gentleness and vulnerability that seemed more befitting of a smitten girl than a man—and a stripper at that. It caught Yuri unspeakably off-guard.

But only for a split-second.

“The door was locked.”

“Oh, really?” The man said. His Russian was piss-poor, but it hardly mattered when he laughed, hesitant and seemingly embarrassed, and scratched beneath his ear. The movement reminded Yuri that the man was very, very skimpily dressed, sheer lingerie clinging to the his body in a gorgeous system of straps and crystals.

Yuri kept his gaze stubbornly upward.

Yet even that face was disarming—especially when those dark, soulful eyes fluttered away shyly. “I don’t know how that happened. Sorry.”

A stupid answer to a question Yuri did not ask. For another long moment, Yuri only stared. The man’s lipstick was smeared across his lower face, making him look like a bashful, scantily-clad circus clown; in the periphery of his stare, Yuri saw too that the skin of his neck was red and irritated.

Yuri looked away, towards the back of the room.

Viktor Nikiforov—leaning against a messy vanity table, briefcase in hand, looking for all the world like a carefree cat who’d just caught and thoroughly enjoyed a mouse—had lipstick all over his stupid fucking face.

“What did I say, old man.”

Viktor withdrew his gloves, sliding one on, then the other.

“ _Old man_.”

“You’re so rude,” Viktor said, voice crisp and unbothered. “I don’t know half the things you say, Yura. You’re always being so mean that I’ve just learned to stop listening.”

By Mila’s sixth missed call, Yuri had realized something was up. One missed call or two indicated a routine update, or that Mila wanted Yuri to do something minor. By the time his phone was on the verge of actually exploding, it usually meant one and extremely annoying thing: a Viktor-management may-day.

So Yuri had answered. Viktor was missing. In a place like Glace Noire, Yuri knew exactly where to look.

“What _is_ it with you and goddamn fucking _strippers_ ,” Yuri bit out, kicking the door in annoyance. Inwardly, privately, he thought it unsurprising that Viktor had closed in on _this_ _one_ , though he’d much rather die than hint at anything of the sort out loud.

“Now, Yura,” Viktor shot back, smug. “We don’t speak of what happens behind locked doors.”

The mesmerizing blush on the stripper’s face grew from a tint of pink to fiery crimson—and blind, unhindered rage instantly rocketed through Yuri’s every bone. Viktor must have seen it, because even before Yuri yelled out: “You _actually fuc_ —!” he was halfway across the room, striding past the dancer and looming into Yuri’s space.

“Another word, Yura,” he said, quietly. The ice in his eyes drenched a frigid chill down Yuri’s spine. “Try it.”

Every time Viktor gave him a command, Yuri’s knee-jerk reaction was to fight. Ever since Viktor had taken him in, it had been that way: Yuri craved an intimate knowledge of what he would be allowed, what Viktor would forgive, and where Viktor’s tolerance would end.

Here, now, was where it ceased.

So all Yuri said was, “Get back. To the fucking car.”

A beat passed—then Viktor’s face curled into his usual casual, amused smile. “Of course, Yura. Yes, Yura.”

Viktor turned to the dancer. Even from Yuri’s standpoint, he could see how Viktor’s expression changed at the sight of him—shifting to something gentler, softer, lovelier. Yuri watched closely as Viktor approached the man, took his hand in a tender, sliding grip, and raised it for a kiss; he watched as Viktor’s lips pressed onto the man’s skin, his other hand pressing a business card into his palm.

The dancer, that blush still radiating on his golden, shimmering skin, only blinked in surprise.

“I hope we meet again,” Viktor said, voice lyrical and soft.

A strange, vile twist churned in Yuri’s gut.

With that, they left.

They reached the car. Viktor climbed in; Yuri followed, shutting the door behind them. Yuri knocked on the ceiling, signaling to the driver to get the limousine moving. They pulled into traffic smoothly, the slush-covered streets halfway abandoned at this time of night.

Viktor swiped his hair away from his face. An absent grin lifted his lips. He propped one leg up onto the other, shifted his briefcase onto his lap, and air-headedly checked the link of one of his cuffs.

“Did you have fun?” He asked Yuri, stupidly, his voice retaining that revolting lyrical quality.

“Up until I had to herd your ass back to the car,” Yuri groused. He leaned his head against the window, tired and still riled up for reasons he couldn’t and didn’t want to understand.

“Oh, lighten up,” Viktor said. He tilted the briefcase up so the handle and lock was visible. “It’s been a good night. You got to see your DJ, and I got to….”

He trailed off. Yuri’s eyes slid away from the window.

A quizzical expression was on Viktor’s face.

Viktor raised one hand, tweaked the second dial of the lock exactly one number down, and popped the case open with one thumb. He rifled through his papers, the manila folders all exactly in place—as they always were.

The soft sound of papers rifling. Viktor’s little _hmm_ s of consideration.

Another moment of silence. Then, with a sure movement of a steady hand, Viktor shut the case.

He lowered the divide to speak directly to the chauffeur. “Turn around, please. We need to go back.”

“Huh?” Yuri straightened in his seat. “What is it?”

Viktor turned to look at him, head slightly tilted, and grinned. There was….an alarming element to his expression, something Yuri had never seen on Viktor’s face before; immediately, Yuri recalled a dreadful childhood memory: the possessed, thinly-controlled brutality of a feral dog, cornering him in an alley and barely allowing Yuri to escape with his limbs intact.

“Now, Yura,” Viktor said—his voice sing-song, his blue eyes gleaming. “I am going to tell you something. But you have to promise that you won’t be mad.”

-//-

There are many things that Yuri hates.

He hates slimy, stinky foods. He hates the sound of snarling dogs. He hates cutesy voices, when people talk down to him, and when people try to spare his feelings, like he’s some kind of child or bleeding heart or delicate flower to be spared the brutalities of life. There are things he hates about himself—like how he never seems to know how to react to any show of genuine emotion; how he so easily loses his head; how readily he blushes and how stupidly he acts around the people he wants to impress, to the point that he can’t help but think of it for hours on end, at night, alone in his bed.

There are things he hates about Viktor Nikiforov.

Viktor, who lounges on a daybed in front of a floor-to-ceiling hotel window, gazing down at the city below as though everyone else were just a peon. Swirling a drink. Pretending to be casual, collected, and unaffected, even as Yuri notes the pinch in his brow and crinkle of his downturned lips.

“That shitty expression,” Yuri says, slamming the door shut behind him, “is why you’re wrinkling so quickly.” His bag drops onto the floor with a messy _thump_.

Viktor’s face purposefully relaxes, ever-so-slightly, as he takes another sip of his drink. “Hello, Yura.”

“Fuck off,” Yuri snaps back. He stomps over to the minibar to grab a soda, loud and uncaring of the mess he must be dragging in with his shoes. “I know exactly what you’re going to say. But what the fuck do you expect from me? How the hell am I supposed to keep track of him?”

Viktor says nothing. He only presses his drink to his cheek—as though he even needs to, with the air conditioning cranked as high as it is—and stares at Yuri with that horrible, infuriating, haughty, knowing look in his eye.

“Asian, black hair, mid-height, slim build, surgical mask,” Yuri lists angrily. “In Hong _fucking_ Kong.”

Yuri plops down in an armchair. He sets his drink on the coffee table between them, then hoists one foot up to unlace his boots. He drags one shoe off, then the other. Once his feet and socks are free, he stretches out and lets down his hair, splaying his arms along the back of the armchair.

Compared to the fiery underworld that is Hong Kong’s summertime streets, the air inside the hotel room is freezing cold. It leaves prickles and frigid bites along Yuri’s bare arms, neck, and everywhere he’s exposed—his sides where his tank-top dips down; his knees where his pants are fashionably slashed open.

Viktor keeps staring at him in appraising silence. Takes another sip.

Yuri sneers.

“You’re being disgusting,” Viktor says quietly. “Much more so than usual.”

Yuri plops his smelly, sock-covered feet on the pristine glass table.

Viktor sighs. “I won’t punish you, Yura. I’m not angry.”

That tone—measured, calm, controlled, everything Yuri can never seem to muster—sends another whirl of anger through his veins. “You think I’m just some kid,” he spits out. Even to his own ears it sounds surly and brattish; that cranks Yuri’s mood even lower. “You’re not angry because you don’t even think I have it in me, do you?”

Viktor shrugs. “He’s a professional. He bested me—”

“Because he wore some slutty outfit, and you’re a fucking _idiot.”_

Viktor chuckles under his breath; lets out a wistful breath. “I am, aren’t I?” He leans back, swirls his drink, and shifts his gaze out the window—seeming to relax into an easy reverie.

It’s not the first time Viktor has lost his train of thought, where this spy is involved.

So Yuri is mildly surprised when Viktor says, without turning to face him: “How close did you get?”

The tone is flat, businesslike. It tells Yuri that he should give a similar answer.

“Close,” Yuri replies. He waffles on whether to be entirely honest; finally decides to just be out with it. “He….knocked my sunglasses off my head. In the street, outside the station.”

Viktor turns to look at him. Silence, for a few moments.

When he finally responds, it’s obvious he’s stifling a chuckle. “Really?”

“It’s not funny,” Yuri bites back. “I almost _had_ him. It must’ve been desperation on his part.”

That’s a lie, and Viktor certainly knows it, though he’s graceful enough to not call it out. Instead he just grins, swiping his hair back and away from his face. “I see. In that case, have you checked your pockets?”

Yuri scowls. “Why,” he asks, tone dead. “I wasn’t carrying anything but my phone.”

Viktor rests one finger on his face, at the farthest corner of his smile. “Check them. Go on.”

Yuri’s scowl stays in place, even as doubt begins to seep into his mind—as his hand slides into each and every pocket, scouring for something, anything. 

In the last one he checks—the left back pocket—there’s a small, folded piece of paper.

Yuri pulls it out. He reads the neat writing, in English, on the front.

_To Viktor_

“If you tear that up,” Viktor says, easily reading Yuri’s mind, “I will have all your hideous clothes incinerated.”

Bees are buzzing in Yuri’s skull as he hands over the note. Both his arm and hand have gone rigid in furious shock.

Viktor reads it. A delighted smile alights on his face. Then he reads it again, and again, and again—and his pale, delicate features curl into a beaming grin. Lines crinkle the corners of his eyes as true, bright, unfiltered laughter escapes his chest.

Yuri gives him a weird look. This isn’t normal. Viktor may be a frivolous idiot, but he’s a _calculated_ idiot. None of his movements or words go wasted or uncontrolled. While his laughter winds down, Viktor tosses the note onto the glass coffee table, leans all the way back, and shields his eyes with one arm; Yuri leans forward, keen on reading what the fuck has turned the calculating, contrived Viktor into a nonsensical mess.

Scrawled on the small, white, folded-once piece of paper, there is simply:

 _Sore Loser_ ♡

As Viktor gazes mushily at the ceiling—and Yuri tries not to literally _gag_ —he sighs and says: “I think I’m in love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh Yurio has a huge dumb crush on Yuuri but he's too young and emotionally constipated to really understand it. This happens in every verse ever, canon or AU. Sorry I don't make the rules.
> 
> The next (and very last) chapter is coming soon! I have honest-to-god been working on it since I posted the very first chapter as a oneshot; I've just been working at a glacial pace. This verse doesn't at all come easy for me... I'm not very clever, lmao.
> 
> I don't usually respond to comments (I'm sort of shy about it ;;) but I love and cherish each one!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Crimson Aria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this chapter is more violent than the others. Lots of guns. Please heed the new tags.
> 
> Any words or phrases not in English have hover-text for easy translation.
> 
> tbh I have very little idea how organized crime even works, but whatever! Let's get cooking!!

_An unwavering, predatory gaze._

_Blue eyes—as vivid and shocking as the interior of a glacier, even amidst the darkness and red-hued lights—locked onto his nearly-naked form. A blur of flashing strobe. The audience whirling in motion. His chest heaving lightly as he gasps; a dull ache and the harsh, cutting constriction of spider-web straps on his feet._

_The slow, methodical pumping of neighboring bass seeping through the dressing room walls._

_The door opening, soft as a whisper, and shutting with a resounding_ click _._

_“You were beautiful,” breathed into his ear—by a man whose beauty is unrivaled._

_Beating pressure. A choking, starving desire for depth: more, further, deeper, wider._

_“Yeah,” from his own throat, shoved out by a gorgeous, merciless thrust. “Again….Again_ —”

-//-

Yuuri’s eyes creak open.

Across the room, on the floor, his phone screams out its alarm tone. His mouth tastes like dirt. The corners of his eyes are alarmingly crusty; his body must be working overtime, tireless in its daily battle against the smoggy, gas-choked air of Shanghai.

Yuuri rolls from bed in a sour, groggy daze. Silences the alarm. Trudges directly into an icy shower. The tile is cool as he presses his forehead into the wall.

Minako had warned him.

When she gave Yuuri his first dossier for the Nikiforov assignment, all those months ago, sipping a dirty martini at that penthouse bar in London, she specifically said: _Brace yourself. This one’s exactly your type._

Tall. Blond. Pink lips and flushed, high cheeks; a sharpness in his gaze, a sly hunger in the way his tongue swiped over that plump bottom lip. From up close, Yuuri could see his long, pale eyelashes; he could see the glimmer of developing stubble in the lights of the dressing room, could imagine how it would feel against his skin in the morning, or rubbing against his inner thighs. He could even remember how that voice had sounded, sliding against his skin and into his ear—a Russian accent, perfectly understandable yet pronounced, whispering adorations and teases and placations.

How easy would it be to press himself into those long, elegant hands again. How simple and delicious, to hear that accent one more time; to hear it say more, filthier, and even more adamant things—

Yuuri drags a heavy hand down his face.

 _This one’s exactly your type._ A sip of a martini; Minako’s glance—long, slow, and knowing, with just a hint of derision in her tone. _You’re smart, Yuuri. So be careful. Don’t let him make you stupid._

But the joke’s on her: Yuuri knows for a fact that he’s been an absolute idiot right from the very start.

He shuts off the faucet, hobbles from the shower, and blots himself dry with the nearest towel. The sun hasn’t yet fallen outside, but the city is already dimming: artificial lights shimmering, headlights flicked on, shadows long and stark where skyscrapers block out the oncoming dusk.

Inside his shoebox studio, Yuuri does as he always does on Friday evenings. He dries his hair. He puts in contacts and dons a plain, nondescript outfit, including his trusty white face-mask. His backpack—readied before he slept so he wouldn’t have to think too hard within one hour of waking—is heavy and harsh against his spine as Yuuri hoists it over his shoulders.

He locks the door behind him. Tromps down the stairs.

It takes twenty minutes to get to work by motorbike. His shift starts at eight o’clock sharp, when the sun has fully set and most of the office workers have finally gone home. A few of his coworkers greet him in the locker room, friendly yet short-spoken. Yuuri’s Shangainese isn’t very good—functional in the day-to-day, but not good enough to carry on lengthy conversations with his peers—yet even that’s normal, especially when so many of them have heard his excellent Mandarin.

His work clothes are kept tidy and neat on a hanger in his locker. Yuuri strips and steps into the same-old brown coverall uniform, threading his arms through the sleeves, zipping it from the hips up to the collarbone, and clipping his nametag, maintenance keys, and access cards to the loops at his waist. His phone and wallet he tucks into the inner pockets, letting them rest against the front of his chest.

Once ready, Yuuri heads out of the locker room. He punches his timecard. He equips his cart, stocking it with the usual supplies: cleaning products, toilet paper, washcloths. As always, he leaves a little room at the bottom of the rack for his backpack; it stays on him, easy to access, during every single shift.

In halting Shangainese, Yuuri tells the nearest supervisor that he’s heading up.

He gets to work.

Floor thirty: a cafe, bakery, and mid-level lounge. Requires mopping and extensive amounts of window cleaner, since nobody can resist smudging their grubby little fingers all over the pastry display cases. Yuuri keeps time as he works, aiming to hit each and every task and practiced chore with perfect, surgical precision.

Floors twenty-nine: full-service restaurant and cafeteria for employees. The kitchens have their own staff to clean, so Yuuri only has to mop the marble lining the halls, vacuum the doorway mats, and clean the restrooms by the elevator.

Floor twenty-eight: typical offices. Vacuum, dust, collect trash, mop hard floors, wipe glass.

Floor twenty-seven: typical offices, yet again. The back wheel of Yuuri’s cart squeaks as he pushes it past the cubicles, collecting trash as he walks. The carpets are thin here, run-down by years of foot traffic; it causes a small ruckus as the contents of Yuuri’s cart rumble and clatter. Most of the cubicles on this particular floor are gray, dated, and aging poorly—but one office, the regional manager’s sparking and sprawling corner office, is handsome and fragrant with wood paneling, mahogany furniture and a plush new carpet.

In that office, over that new carpet, Yuuri knows that his rickety cart will be silent. No one will look for him there.

The door does not creak as it opens. Yuuri regularly greases the hinges.

When Yuuri first started working here, he briefly met the owner of this office—though perhaps _met_ is a strong term. From what Yuuri could tell of him, the man was an arrogant boor, regularly hollering at his employees and peeking at them from inner windows made of one-way glass. Yuuri remembers a night when the entire staff of this floor were working late, hurrying and typing away furiously at their keyboards; the manager, in stark contrast, had simply watched them scuttle, camped at his desk next to a cracked-open window, one hand hanging a cigarette out into the howling Shanghai wind.

Yuuri glances out that window. Below and above, the glimmer of the city pours in, shining onto each of the manager’s three desks. A center desk holds a computer and its monitors; a right desk, farthest from the windows, has a network of carefully kept shelves and slots; and a third—the one pressed up against the window—is essentially empty. The manager, pitiful as he is, keeps only various loose papers, two paperweights, and an ashtray on it. There are no pictures of family or friends.

Yuuri puts on a new pair of gloves. Locks the door.

He clears all of the meager contents from the third desk, stacking them into a neat pile against the wall. The window above the desk tilts open with the barest push of a single fingertip; immediately, the underlying soundtrack of the city rushes in: cars, trains, and people all blending into a dull metropolitan roar.

Over that urban chorus—as clear and exquisite as the ring of a bell—is the soaring timbre of an aria.

From this office, there is a clear and unhindered view of the rooftop balcony of the Shanghai operahouse. While Yuuri’s sky-high workplace insists on anonymity in a forest of steel, the operahouse bursts with culture and pretense; the building is resplendent, situated in a lush park and framed by warm, artfully cast lighting. Yuuri has spent many nights staring at its beauty, trying as well as he can to only sit, breathe, and listen.

There won’t be any of that tonight.

Yuuri takes his backpack from the cart. Unzips it.

He withdraws, piece by piece, an all-black Barrett MRAD sniper rifle.

As Yuuri assembles the gun—connecting its barrel, propping its legs, loading its chamber—he hears the buoyant tones of the soprano reverb into nothingness. A quick check of his wristwatch, and he confirms: it’s just about time for intermission. On the operahouse’s rooftop, perfectly visible from the corner office, servers are already prepped and ready, their trays aloft and ties tweaked just-so over their necks.

Soon, Yuuri’s mark will be up for his usual glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. He’s a predictable man.

The best targets always are.

The first theatergoers begin to trickle onto the rooftop. Yuuri readies himself, bracing one knee onto an anchored chair and pressing his lower belly into the desk’s edge. His breath comes out slow and steady, the warmth of his exhales kept close under the cover of his face-mask.

But just as Yuuri catches first visual of his target, an incoming call buzzes against his chest.

Annoyed, he snags a quick peek at the screen. The name _Alfred_ flashes into view—one of Phichit’s beloved hamsters.

Yuuri very nearly answers it. If Phichit is calling, especially when he knows that Yuuri is on-assignment, it’s undoubtedly something important. But for now, he opts to dismiss it. Phichit will notice and know what that must mean.

He puts the phone away.

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

A second call—which Yuuri also ignores. Through the scope, he sees the theatergoers fully enjoying the rooftop deck; servers walk to and fro, taking and delivering new drink orders and an array of hor d'oeuvres. Yuuri spots the target again as the man saunters near the operahouse doors, his expected glass of wine already half-finished.

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

Yuuri frowns. Could it be an emergency….?

As he swipes the screen, Yuuri says nothing—just leans back into the scope and waits for Phichit to drop a status code.

“Yuuri! Finally you answer.”

Ice crashes through Yuuri’s veins. He knows this voice. He _dreams_ of this voice.

“You’re harder to get a hold of than heads-of-state,” the voice says—with that lyrical, deep, familiar flourish that seems to caress every vowel. “And I would know.”

Yuuri swallows. His throat is suddenly dry, so his voice comes out raw and slow. “….Where.”

“Hm? Where?” That voice is sickly-sweet. “Where what?”

The target has shuffled towards the balcony ledge, wandering ever-closer into clear-shot range. Yet in the corner-office, Yuuri’s heart is thundering, a roar rocketing through his ears. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”

A playful tone. “Do what, Yuuri?”

Yuuri resists locking his jaw. “You have his phone,” Yuuri explains. He won’t say Phichit’s name or any of his covers; he doesn’t know what’s already been blown. “So. _Where._ Is he.”

“Hm….” That Russian accent, elegant and familiar as it is, sends electricity jolting along Yuuri’s skin. “By now? I would say….he’s just landed in Chicago.”

Yuuri says nothing. He doesn’t understand.

“I put him on a plane. I can’t say I was always polite, but I did leave him intact.” A small huff; a gentle laugh. “He went through security and everything.”

The target is sauntering ten meters from the ledge, sausage fingers clutching a glass that’s all but empty now. There’s no clear shot; he’s weaving among the other theatergoers, waving a fussy hand at a server—probably to demand a refill.

“He was an absolute nightmare to interrogate,” that lovely, terrifying voice continues in Yuuri’s ear. “I’m quite convinced that he would die for you. And while that _was_ an option, at first, I figured that it would make a far better impression on you if I sent him off in one piec—”

Yuuri hangs up.

Instant relief floods his system. As his brain momentarily halts its usual churn of adrenaline, Yuuri releases a slow, even breath; it grounds him, even as the exhale remains warm and close beneath his mask.

He peers back through the scope.

Anticipate the next step. Predict the next five. Two suits, three gowns, one server in a uniform—but only one to watch, one to lock on to: a man with a white dinner jacket, a deep-red drink, and a clownishly bright canary-yellow bowtie—

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

Yuuri dismisses it.

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

Dismiss.

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

Dismiss.

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz_ —

“ _What_ ,” Yuuri grits out.

The target, wandering only five meters from the balcony ledge, steps and stops behind a tall potted plant.

“Yuuri,” that voice whines—actually whines!—before huffing in frustration. “I worked hard to find you. Won’t you talk to me?”

The target walks back out—but another suit, a tall man the size of a tractor, suddenly blocks Yuuri’s view.

Yuuri purses his mouth. “I’m busy.”

There’s a beat of silence. “You do know who this is, yes?”

Yuuri barely resists rolling his eyes. “Of _course_ I do. But I’m busy.”

Another huge suit passes through the line of fire. Yuuri wants deeply and profoundly to swear.

“If you know,” that voice purrs, “then why won’t you call me by name?”

The target maneuvers around a woman in a blue dress and nearly goes to lean against the ledge, a cigarette now hanging from his lips—yet at the last moment, two men catch his attention and box him into a conversation.

“Well?”

Yuuri keeps watching through the scope. There are no openings. His jaw clenches.

“Viktor,” Yuuri whispers.

Even through the phone, he can tell the man is grinning. “There it is.”

At that, Yuuri flushes—then scowls. “What do you want?”

“Well,” Viktor says casually, “actually, I wanted to clear some things up with you.”

“Huh?” Yuuri is still staring through the scope; there are still no openings. “Viktor, I don’t have _time_ for—”

“You could shut off your phone,” Viktor interrupts. “You could hang up right now. In fact, you could have done a lot of things, in regard to me. How well do you remember that night?”

One of the suits slings a friendly and bulky arm around the target. The man could make quite a career in American football, being as gigantic and disruptive as he is.

“Barely,” Yuuri lies.

“I, for one, remember it well,” Viktor continues. “And you know what I can’t stop wondering about?”

“How I robbed you mid-fuck?” Yuuri mumbles.

“No.” Viktor huffs a laugh. “Nice work, by the way.”

One of the suits steps away. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. But no—what I can’t stop thinking about is: you locked the door.”

Yuuri stays silent. The target pushes off his companion, appearing to motion the man to go away.

“You locked the door,” Viktor says again, musing. “You’re a competent, highly trained professional. There’s an excellent chance that, given the element of surprise, you could have overpowered me. But….that isn’t what you did.”

At every word Viktor speaks, Yuuri’s jaw grits that little bit tighter.

“Why, Yuuri?” The man says— _purrs_ —and he’s using Yuuri’s name far too much for anyone’s good. “Why didn’t you just….subdue me? You certainly had enough chances at my neck. You could have tied me up.” He chuckles under his breath; Yuuri, against his better judgment, imagines his smile—and perhaps the gleam in his bright eyes, or cigarette smoke leaking from that pale, gorgeous throat. “I would have welcomed it.”

“Ah….Well,” Yuuri says—his voice wavering, fluttery, almost whispering. “That’s….because….”

“Because?”

“Um. Well. Viktor, I….”

“Yes…?”

Yuuri hangs up.

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

Yuuri sees a chance through the scope, for just split second—but a heartbeat later, it’s fled and gone. Another damn suit, a man who may as well be hybridized with a freight train, leans heavily into the target’s space and whispers in his ear. As Yuuri watches the man seize the target’s upper arm, he wonders if the man is being tipped off.

But the target doesn’t leave. All he does is step back a few meters from the ledge—right into the impenetrable obstruction of an entire _line_ of suited men, every one of them bulky, stoic, and wearing not-so-subtle earpieces.

It’s obvious from the target’s discomfort that they are not his own security detail.

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

The ice flees Yuuri’s veins. All that remains is sluggish, churning concrete.

_Bzz. Bzz. Bzz._

“Viktor.”

Yuuri’s deadened tone must betray his panic, because there’s a delighted laugh from the other end. “While I know you’re busy doing something important, difficult, and extremely sexy….”

As Yuuri would have guessed, Viktor Nikiforov’s face is just as beautiful through a sniper scope as it was in the crimson lights of that club. His lips are curled and pink as he takes in a drag of his cigarette. A tuxedo perfectly cradles his chest as he leans against the rooftop’s ledge of the operahouse, Phichit’s cell phone tucked against his ear.

“….Won’t you spare a little time for me?”

Yuuri allows the moments to drag. Through the scope, he watches Viktor suck the cigarette—the man’s face patient and peaceful. Infuriatingly so.

“I should kill you,” Yuuri whispers. “Right now.”

Viktor beams, looking down at the phone with something like fondness in his eyes. “You won’t.”

“How do you figure that?”

A final puff of smoke curls from Viktor’s beautiful mouth before he jabs the cigarette onto the ledge. “It’s simple, Yuuri. You are a professional. I am not your target. And,” Viktor’s face curls into a delighted, knowing smirk. “You obviously have a thing for me.”

Yuuri purses his chapped mouth into a tight frown. “Do I.”

“Yes,” Viktor says, easy as breathing. “And, well, who can blame you? I _do_ know what I look like.”

Yuuri hangs up.

He finds immense satisfaction in watching Viktor’s pretty mouth shape the words _cyka blyat_ before he jabs a finger onto the phone’s screen, redialing yet again. The moment Yuuri answers, Viktor says, his voice barely constrained into something sweet: “You really must stop doing that.”

“Sorry. The urge was too overwhelming.”

“Mm.” Viktor tilts his head to the side, pinching the phone into his shoulder and looking smug as he fiddles with a cufflink. “I know how weak you are to your urges.”

Yuuri hangs up.

This time, Yuuri lets the phone buzz for a little while as he adjusts his body position, shaking the tension from his arms, rolling his shoulders, and re-anchoring his hold on the rifle. As he refocuses his gaze on the target, Yuuri can only spot the very tip-top of his head; it’s just barely visible between the bulky shoulders of Viktor’s lined-up henchmen.

The phone never stops its incessant buzzing. Yuuri finally answers.

“How you love to toy with me, _moy_ _Yuuri_.”

“Since when?”

A disbelieving scoff. “Since we first met! And even before that, probably—”

“No,” Yuuri says. His mind is split between two tasks—keeping his eyes on that tiny sliver of the target’s exposed hair, and keeping Viktor talking—but Yuuri has never doubted his ability to focus, nor his skills in multitasking. “Since when am I yours?”

Yuuri trains the rifle onto the exact spot where he knows that forehead must be. A shoulder just barely blocks it. But he knows it’s there.

“Not yet,” Viktor says—and his words are so quiet, his tone so measured and heavy, that a strange pressure seizes in Yuuri’s chest. “But I am persistent. And you, beautiful Eros, are terrible at resisting my advances.”

“I’ll hang up again,” Yuuri warns.

“Please, no! My heart can only take so much,” Viktor says, tone so silly and playful that Yuuri _knows_ he must be mocking him.

Yuuri lets his breath leak out very slowly. He doesn’t appreciate being made fun of, or prodded in any one of his many, _many_ obvious weak-spots—even if it’s by one of the weak-spots himself.

So he says, trying for casual indifference: “Or I could just shoot you.”

The way Viktor laughs sends tingles down Yuuri’s spine. “Okay. Go ahead. My body is yours to do as you like.”

Not a flit of fear or malice enters his voice. If anything, he’s preening under Yuuri’s attention.

Yuuri bites his lip. Hard. He still has no clear shot at the target, and his mind isn’t much clearer. That dismay must leak into his tone as he whispers, “Viktor….”

Viktor’s tone instantly softens. “Don’t sound so upset, _Eroshka_. I know there isn’t much time left. I’m happy to give him back to you,” Viktor says.

Yuuri says nothing. Just waits.

“If you do a little something for me.”

But of course.

Yet while Yuuri can (and will) conjure any number of worst-case scenarios at a moment’s notice, no amount of catastrophizing can prepare him for: “Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

“ _What?_ ” Yuuri practically hisses. “Viktor. Quit joking.”

“Who is joking? Not me.” Yuuri can envision his wink with perfect clarity. “Give me your word that I’ll see you for dinner, and I would be delighted to let you kill this man.”

Through the scope, Yuuri glances the very top of the target’s head as the man tries to peer around a bodyguard. Yuuri watches as the guard in front of him gives a slight shudder, withdraws a handkerchief from his pocket, and muffles a small and nearly imperceptible cough into it. After the man finishes coughing, the handkerchief stays clenched in his fist.

“You want my word?” Yuuri triple-checks his rifle, ensuring yet again that the safety is indeed off and the silencer is secured. “After what I’ve done to you, how much could my word possibly mean?”

“Quite a lot.”

Yuuri truly doesn’t know what to say to that. So instead, he asks, a hefty dose of incredulity in his tone: “…Where would we go?”

“Oh, I already made reservations. It’s this lovely little place; I went there a few years ago, and I’ve heard that the new sous chef has elevated the experience even further….”

To Yuuri’s complete bewilderment, he actually sounds excited. As he listens to Viktor’s plans, Yuuri bites on his lip, almost to the point of a flinch. Through the scope, he sees the guard cough again; it’s harsh this time, jolting his body downwards once then twice before he stills.

“But aren’t you furious with me?”

A beat of quiet—then Viktor’s tone sobers, yet remains soft. “I was. For some time. But that’s not important now.” Yuuri can imagine him waving a hand at it, as though batting off a fly. “All I want to know is: do you accept, or not? Intermission will end soon.”

Yuuri watches the bodyguard clamp the handkerchief onto his mouth yet again. He trains his scope onto the man’s shoulder. Precisely when expected, the guard coughs, jolting up then down in an intense shudder—and that sliver of a dome behind him turns into an open, visible forehead.

Yuuri’s bullet spatters blood and skull all over the gray brick of the operahouse balcony.

He can’t remember if he hangs up or not. Adrenaline pumps through his veins yet again, drowning out all sounds and slowing down the seconds. But even as Yuuri shuts the world out—even as he’s finally accomplished his mission—he can’t resist stealing one last glance of Viktor through the scope of his rifle.

He finds that pale, nearly-white hair easily in the screaming, scrambling crowd. He sees the stillness of Viktor’s form, phone still perched in one hand; he devours the shape of that sharp suit, fitted to perfection over those long legs and broad, elegant shoulders.

As Yuuri stares through the glass of his scope, those glacier-blue eyes stare right back.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispers—realizing that Viktor must have placed lookouts on all the surrounding buildings. That Yuuri’s own insistence to complete this mission, whether it was comprised or not, has undoubtedly revealed his exact location.

That Yuuri’s only chance at anonymity—at walking away from this unscathed, cover un-blown—entirely shattered the moment he took that shot.

For all Yuuri knows, the call is still connected as he shoves his phone out the window, letting it tumble towards a skull-like splatter onto the concrete below. Fiery heat still emanates from the rifle’s chamber as Yuuri hurriedly breaks the gun apart and stuffs it into his backpack.

“Fuck, _fuck—_ ” Yuuri mutters under his breath as he hurries, steps silent as can be, down the darkened hall and into the nearest and most secretive stairwell. The key-only service elevators can only take him down so many floors, and he’s too experienced to risk cornering himself into enclosed spaces; he has no choice but to flee by foot, clasping his keys in one hand to smother their jingling.

Only a thorough knowledge of the building allows him to make it to the ground floor without seeing a single soul.

“Fuck. Fuck,” Yuuri mumbles to himself, jamming a failsafe key into a fire escape door, trying to nullify the alarm. “ _Fuck_ , why am I so—”

His hands are shaking. His heart is pounding.

When those icy blue eyes found him—when he saw that _gaze_ again, predatory, hungry, unblinking, utterly focused and unquestionable—Yuuri’s palms had slicked with sweat. His body, his _stupid_ body, had instantly thrummed with coiled-tight tension, begging for more, famished and alight and implacable by mere memories replayed in a dream.

The fire door’s alarm gives a small, whining noise as it relents and deactivates.

Before Yuuri falls against the door—swinging open into the alley outside, and to possible freedom—he grabs a nearby bin, hoisting it against his hip and up to obscure his face. He walks out slowly and carefully, making sure not to make noise on the stairs. Already he can hear sirens, as well as Russian being spoken nearby—likely at the mouth of the alley, facing out towards the street.

Yuuri casually strolls in the exact opposite direction, towards a small row of dumpsters.

There’s no warning before his lower face is smothered in a chloroform-soaked cloth.

-//-

_“Yuuri.”_

_He knows that voice. He’s known it for years_ — _and of course he’d hear it now, clinging to a barre, holding back tears, nearly wrecked and on the verge of plunging into a three-thousand-calorie rock bottom._

_“Yuuri,” she says again, insistent. She knows exactly how childish he can be and has never once in Yuuri’s life allowed him to ignore her. “Stop this. You’ll only make it worse.”_

_Yuuri’s throat tightens with anger and bitterness both. But he sighs. He sets his feet flat, rolling from toe-tips to soles with slow, bitter purpose._

_“Minako-sensei. What do you want?”_

_His knee throbs. The doctor told him that this agony was only a memory_ , _a ghost of that horrible moment when Yuuri’s hopes and hard work had all crumbled with an A-flat and an aborted pirouette._

 _Minako steps forward._ **_Her_ ** _career had been long and shimmering, a beloved prima of world-class troupes and thousands of worldwide fans. Yuuri’s mouth twists into a mioue at the thought._

_“I want to know your plan,” she says, offering a half-smile._

_Yuuri looks away. Keeps silent._

_“An injury doesn’t have to be career-ending, Yuuri. You’re not the first one this has happened to.”_

_Yuuri still says nothing. He rummages through his gym bag nearby, shaking out a pair of sweats and a jacket to put on over his shirt and tights._

_“Your operation was just weeks ago. Have a little patience—”_

_“A year,” Yuuri interrupts. He sits down to change from his slippers into street shoes. “The doctor said I would need at least a year to regain equivalent strength in my right leg.”_

_“In a year, you’ll be twenty-three,” Minako reminds him. “That’s young.”_

_“The ballet-master won’t wait for me.” At Minako’s silence, the lump in Yuuri’s throat gets thicker. “He’ll get another lead, and all my progress will be gone. I’ll have to start from scratch.”_

_Minako doesn’t miss a beat. “Then do it. Or find a new troupe.”_

_“I don’t know if I even_ **_want_ ** _to—” Yuuri cuts himself off. He doesn’t continue, instead tying the laces of his street shoes a little too tightly, with double and triple knots. “All I’ve ever done is dance. This injury, it’s—I realize now, now that I’m useless, that dancing is all I can even do. I don’t know how to live without it.”_

_“And that upsets you.”_

_Yuuri flicks his eyes up to her sourly, sharply; he dreads putting on his sweats, being reminded of his injury yet again by maneuvering the fabric up over the brace. “Right now, everything upsets me.”_

_Minako shrugs; flicks her long hair back over her shoulder. “That’s your decision, Yuuri. You’ve always been so stubborn, especially when you want to feel bad for yourself.” That sets Yuuri’s veins boiling; but he holds his tongue. Minako continues, “If you just want to steal studio time, indulge in self-pity, and undo all the surgeons’ hard work, then I guess that’s what you’ll do. But there are other options. Other things you could do and learn, outside of dance.”_

_Yuuri sighs again. His head hangs by his knees for a moment; then he braces himself and stands_ — _leaning entirely on his left leg._

_“Like what?” He asks, only a little surly about it._

_Minako grins. “Haven’t you ever wondered what I did after retiring?”_

-//-

Yuuri blinks awake, his eyes raw and dry from over-worn contact lenses.

Even as he rubs his forehead, fighting off a pounding headache, Yuuri can instantly tell that this is not a familiar bed. It’s fluffy, dressed in white, and entirely too spacious _—_ the exact opposite of the one in his studio. The light that trickles in from between gently parted linen curtains is yellow and artificial, the tone of urban night; the furniture is sleek, functional, and utterly devoid of any kind of personality.

He must be in a hotel.

As Yuuri slips out of bed, he realizes that he’s been changed from his work coveralls to a pair of soft, royal blue pajamas. It’s so shockingly absurd that he nearly coughs out a startled laugh. Considering the lack of chloroform burns on his face—not to mention how he didn’t wake up even as someone _changed his clothes_ —Yuuri is certain that he was drugged somehow. Luckily, other than a swiftly worsening headache, he doesn’t feel as though he’s in any kind of altered state.

His footsteps are silent as he walks over to the window. The streetlights, cars, and commuters below look like a flurry of insects. Unsurprisingly, in a hotel room, from this height, there is no way to pry open any of the windows.

At least his ridiculous pajamas have pockets.

Yuuri scans the room for something to fill them with. The pen he swipes from the desk. He recognizes the insignia on the stationary as one of the more well-known luxury hotels in Shanghai. The hotel is plenty nice enough to offer purified water in glass bottles; Yuuri empties one—drinking two-thirds, dumping the rest on the carpet—wraps it in a towel, then shatters it against the desk’s edge.

For a silent minute, then two, Yuuri waits and listens. No one comes. They must not have heard the muted noise.

Yuuri salvages the longest and sharpest shard, stowing it in his pocket. He discards the rest in the towel, wrapping it all up and tossing it within an empty desk drawer and out of sight.

Other than water, the minibar has tiny snacks and liquors. Yuuri stuffs a granola bar in his mouth, practically inhaling it in one go; then he downs a bag of peanuts, a candy bar, and some potato chips. To finish it all off, he swigs the mini Jack Daniels until it’s all gone. He has a feeling that he’s going to need all the energy and liquid courage that he can get.

Slowly, silently, Yuuri creeps up to the bedroom door. Before he can risk leaving—or even trying the knob—he needs to make sure he’s not walking into peril. Yuuri presses his ear against the seam above the doorknob, waits, and holds his breath.

Footsteps.

Extremely dainty ones, despite the attempt at forceful stomps.

Yuuri rushes back to the bed and climbs inside, taking care not to poke or cut himself with his new pocket loot. Not a moment later, the bedroom swings open and hits the wall, colliding with the coiled wall protector with a ridiculous _pwan-an-ang_.

“Pig,” his captor says, slamming an open palm against the room’s light switch. As the overhead lamp switches on, Yuuri sees that it’s the waiflike blond boy with the bad attitude—how could Yuuri ever forget him. Although he made a ruckus approaching the room, the boy isn’t wearing any shoes; white cotton socks peek out from under a pair of black jeans. “Time to get up.”

Yuuri doesn’t move at all. He lets his eyes go wide, clueless.

The boy scowls. “ _Up_ ,” he growls, slowly, like Yuuri is an idiot—which is exactly the idea.

Yuuri lets his eyes flick to the right, then back. Vacantly. Stupidly.

For now, the boy seems content to table the issue, instead trudging over towards the minibar. Yuuri’s pulse jolts for a moment; then he realizes that it really doesn’t matter if he’s caught raiding the minibar, since that in itself is not suspicious, and he’s certainly not paying for any of it.

But before the boy can grab hold of the fridge and swing it open, he steps on a particular spot—and stops dead. A long moment later, he lifts up one socked foot, scowling at the sole like it just insulted his entire ancestral tree.

Yuuri’s brow rises as the boy glares at him darkly.

“Did you fucking piss on the carpet?”

Oh. That’s where Yuuri emptied the bottle. Well.

When Yuuri says nothing, the boy actually leans down to sniff it. His investigation must come up clean, because the boy shrugs, scowls, and scoffs all at once—an incredible feat of emoting—before turning back around to give Yuuri another full-frontal glare. “What-the fuck-ever. Just get out of that bed already.”

This boy (and his attitude; and his constant swearing) is so painfully teenaged that Yuuri has to resist a smile. His accent is much stronger than Viktor’s, but every so often, a syllable will be pronounced with extreme care, as though an English tutor has forced him to practice that exact word over and over. It also seems likely that, with his plentiful angst and adolescent faux-confidence, this boy will continue to underestimate Yuuri indefinitely—a nice treat in the midst of the total and utter shitstorm Yuuri’s life has become.

Yuuri’s good humor snuffs out as the boy reaches for his lower back, a telltale sign of:

“Get off the bed or I’ll fucking shoot you, how about that,” the boy snaps, holding the pistol like he’s been taught how.

Yuuri puts his hands up, but only follows the directions after the boy flicks the chamber to the side. Once he’s standing, the boy hmphs and lowers the pistol in satisfaction. “There. Was that so goddamn hard?”

Yuuri says nothing.

“Why won’t you _say_ anything?”

Silence.

“Fucking _talk!”_ The boy orders—twitching the pistol up slightly, but lowering it again instantly. He says, as though Yuuri is a puppy in its third week of failed obedience training: “Speak.”

Yuuri finally answers—in Japanese. _“What do you want me to say?”_

“Are you fucking serious.”

His Kyushu accent is out in full-force as he says, _“Cursing is a bad habit.”_

The boy stomps forward twice in sheer frustration. “ _Stop_ that. I know you speak fucking English.”

Yuuri tilts his head and widens his eyes, in that girlish way Minako taught him that says: _I’m so stupid and helpless. There’s not a single clue in my whole damn head._

The boy steps forward again, pistol lifting to point vaguely towards Yuuri’s legs. Yuuri lets his wide-eyed head-tilt turn to a full deer-in-headlights look. “Stop fucking around! This dumbshit act won’t work. Viktor might be a shit-for-brains idiot, but _I_ won’t be so easily—”

The instant that pistol rises a little higher—and a little closer—Yuuri swats it right out of the boy’s hand.

The gun skids and spins to a stop somewhere under the desk. Although Yuuri would love to claim a pistol for his very own, right now, he has to have his priorities in line: nullify his captor (check), find a way out, and successfully _take_ that way out. So before the boy can scramble after the gun, Yuuri wrenches him in by the arm, withdraws the shard from his right pocket, and presses it against the boy’s collar.

“Relax,” Yuuri says. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Based on the boy’s acidic tone, he’s never been quite so enraged in his entire life. “You’re gonna fucking get it now,” he whispers; but despite his fury, he doesn’t thrash. “Viktor will _kill_ _you_ for this.”

Yuuri’s tone, by contrast, is casual. Bland, even. “I assumed he was going to kill me anyway. Not for this. For the other thing.”

“Yeah, well, now you’ll get murdered even _harder_.”

Yuuri can’t help it—he grins a little. “So I take it he spoils you.”

“Oh _fuck_ you—”

“Shh,” Yuuri whispers, pressing the shard up a little higher. He avoids actually making contact with the boy’s jugular, but it’s plenty close enough to get the _point_ across. “Quiet now. We’re leaving.”

And the boy, shockingly, actually goes silent. For a brief time.

The second after Yuuri drags him into the silent hallway, he whispers: “Do you actually think this will work?”

Yuuri pushes the shard a little further into his neck.

He looks right, then left. Then right again. There are faint voices coming from there, what sounds like multiple men arguing adamantly, though not so much so that they’re yelling. Yuuri wonders if Viktor is in there. If he is, then Yuuri knows exactly what he has to do.

They go left. One door at the end of the hallway has a distinctive knob, lock, and keyhole—obviously the exit, and Yuuri’s ticket out into the hotel hallway beyond.

Yuuri goes absolutely still as the cold, blunt end of a silenced pistol presses into the back of his head.

“Let go of him.”

A woman’s voice: light in octave, yet heavy in accent and gravity.

For a long moment, Yuuri doesn’t dare move. He senses—in the way the woman is stock-still, and how she has notched the pistol up into the divot beneath his inion—that if he so much as breathes irregularly, his brain will be dispersed all over the hotel’s fashionable geometric wallpaper. If her tone is anything to go by, this woman would relish the opportunity to do just that.

So rather than twitch a single muscle, Yuuri decides to do what he does best: make a horrible, mind-numbingly stupid gamble. “You don’t want to make a mess,” he says, tone calm, “or take Viktor’s prize away before he’s really had a chance to enjoy it.”

The woman laughs. “We all know that Viktor has _enjoyed_ you very much already.” A beat passes; the pistol does not shift as she says, “Yura. Come around to me.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Baba,” the boy says, then shoves Yuuri’s hand and the shard aside like it’s all deadweight. He rolls his shoulders, fixes his shirt, and flicks his long hair back over his shoulder.

“Just get over here,” the woman orders. “And _don’t_ touch him as you do, or he’ll—”

As the boy bumps pettily into his shoulder, Yuuri grabs his wrist and yanks him off-balance—enough that he stumbles along Yuuri’s back, both destabilizing the pistol and putting a barrier between Yuuri and the woman’s point-blank shot. In the new chaos, Yuuri takes two long steps forward, grabs hold of the door’s handle, yanks it down, and pulls the door open—only for a thick-heeled boot to slam into his lower back, sending Yuuri face-first into the door.

It slams firmly shut on impact.

“ _Fuck!_ Yura! What did I just say!” The woman yells, then continues to scold the boy in Russian, her words so hurried and explicit that Yuuri can’t quite follow.

All the breath has been knocked clean out of him, and that kick probably landed square on his kidney, but Yuuri is nothing if not persistent. While his captors argue loudly in Russian, he tries again to push down the handle and pull the door in; a different, socked foot pins him to the door with a grinding shove between his shoulders.

The furious Russian finally ceases with the woman’s scoff of frustration. She grabs hold of Yuuri’s collar and starts half-tugging, half-carrying him along, like a mother cat with a kitten in her mouth. She doesn’t take him far: before Yuuri gathers himself enough to struggle, she has the door at the other end of the hallway open and is tossing him onto the floor just inside.

There’s a few seconds of dumbstruck, shocked silence.

“Mila,” Viktor finally says—as though a beloved yet annoying neighbor has just dropped in unannounced. “So that’s what all the noise was.”

Yuuri scrambles upright, onto his knees. The moment he’s up, the woman’s pistol is back in its favorite spot against his skull. But that doesn’t concern Yuuri so much anymore, not when Viktor is front of him, seated on a hotel couch as though it were a throne and looking like— _that_.

His neat tuxedo has been replaced with charcoal slacks and a white, sharply tailored shirt. A shoulder holster cradles his chest, one matte-black glock tucked beneath each arm. Upon those long, elegant fingers, a Burgundy-style wine glass is perched, and there’s something about the way he swirls the wine—red; a bottle on the low coffee table reads _Roman_ _é_ _e St. Vivant_ —that sends Yuuri’s blood singing.

If the small, quick half-smile Viktor sends him is to be believed, then he knows it too.

Viktor looks to Mila as he says in Russian, _“Did you have to bring him in here?”_

“He’s annoying,” she says. Apparently, she doesn’t give a damn if the conversation is kept semi-private, replying in English immediately. “And he was picking on Yura. I wanted him to suffer.”

Long after Yuuri has thoroughly studied Viktor, he realizes that there are other men in the room. Some spy he is. The other men, four of them, range in age from silver-haired to barely legal. The eldest man—perhaps in his late sixties —is seated nearest to Viktor, at a 90-degree angle. The youngest has a baby face and trendy, dyed-brown hair; only his calm demeanor and tailored suit distinguishes him as an adult. The other two men, obviously middle-aged, are wearing nondescript black suits and impassive faces—a distinct look that screams _bodyguard_.

“That’s him,” the oldest man says, aghast. Yuuri recognizes his accent as native-born Shanghainese. “The one from the footage.”

Viktor adopts a glazed, tired expression, like a parent anticipating yet another of a child’s many tantrums. He takes a slow and particularly indulgent sip of his wine.

“Has the killer been here…” The man looms forward slowly; Yuuri can’t decide if it’s for effect or arthritis. “...This. Entire. _Time?”_

Viktor swallows his mouthful, throat rolling delicately.

“I never said he wasn’t.”

The old man slams a hand onto the coffee table; the bottle of wine shudders then stills. Although there’s practically a full bottle and four men seated at the table, Viktor has only brought out one glass: his own.

“What is the meaning of this! We paid you to _stop_ _him!”_

Ever-so-slightly, Viktor rolls his eyes—though not slightly enough for anyone to miss it.

“You tried to play us,” the man rushes out, raising a shaky hand and single finger into Viktor’s face. “You were going to take our money, play us for fools, and, and—retrieve your _toy_ before we could see you for the liar you are.”

“Wrong,” Viktor says, and flicks the man’s pointed finger away with one of his own. “Though I like where your mind is. As I’ve said before, I did the best I could to protect your man. It was simply bad luck that the one they sent for him is very, very good at his job.” Viktor’s eyes, a shocking blue, scan Yuuri from his knees to his hair. “So good, in fact, that I knew capturing him had to be a top priority.”

And Yuuri must be absolutely losing his mind, because first he blushes. Then he notices that Viktor’s legs are left slightly ajar and could do with another little push apart. Then he blushes _again_ , pursing his lips and nervously flitting his focus away from Viktor’s gaze.

Viktor turns back to the men. He smiles sweetly. “So, that’s how it is. Nothing personal.”

“Noth—” The old man gets even redder in the face. “You _failed!_ Miserably! You _only_ had to—”

“As I have said before,” Viktor interrupts, voice firm. “When you suspect that someone might try to assassinate you at the opera, it isn’t the brightest idea to _go to the opera_. Seems sensible, yes?” Viktor shrugs. “It’s hardly my fault that your friend insisted on finishing up his season tickets.”

“So, as I understand it,” the young man pipes up; the old man might be too incensed to do anything but yell. “You didn’t allow the assassin to succeed. But you did catch him afterwards, and kept it a secret from us.”

“Yes. Of course. Is stupidity a common affliction in your syndicate?” Viktor sets down his drink; the glass’s stem _clacks_ as he places it on the table. “Mila just tossed him in here with a gun at his back. He’s a prisoner. _My_ prisoner. What else is there to say?”

“What else _?”_ The old man nearly screeches. _“He’s in hotel fucking pajamas!”_

Viktor frowns. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Hand him over to us,” the younger man says—trying to bring the conversation back on track. “The chairman’s nephew is dead. We must at least present him with the killer. You owe us that much, Nikiforov.”

Viktor leans back against the couch. One finger comes to rest against the side of his pink lips.

“Interesting,” he drawls, “that you think I owe you anything at all.”

None of the men respond. Perhaps they’re shocked; perhaps they don’t know what to say. Likely a bit of both.

“I suppose I have to repeat myself. Yet again,” Viktor says, smoothly checking the watch at his wrist. “I will not be taking any of your money. I do not want or need it. I understand that the job was left unfinished, and I’m no thief.”

The old man very nearly has an aneurysm at that statement; the younger man raises a hand in an attempt to calm him. “Nikiforov—”

“My deepest condolences for your loss.”

“ _Nikiforov_.”

Viktor’s gaze flicks back up. There is a palpable charge in the room. Most potently, Yuuri senses the woman—Mila, with the scarlet hair—a mere half-breath away from aiming and firing that pistol still clutched in her hand. If, during this conversation, either of the Shanghainese bodyguards had so much as flinched at their suit jackets, Yuuri knows they would already be splayed face-down and spouting red onto the hotel’s creamy-white area rug.

“If you do not give us the killer,” the younger man says, “you will never be able to set foot in Shanghai again.”

Viktor offers a wry half-smile. “That’s a shame.” His stare slides to Yuuri, on the floor, on his knees; his smile goes softer, fuller. “Where shall we go next, Eroshka? I know Barcelona is beautiful this time of year.”

If the drop of Yuuri’s jaw could make noise, it would be the only sound in the room.

Viktor’s grin widens. “I think,” he says—slowly, gracefully drawing one of the glocks from his shoulder holster; studying it idly— “that I’d like to show you the Sagrada Familia. Have you seen it?”

Yuuri shuts his mouth. Swallows roughly. “I haven’t.”

Viktor beams. “Perfect! Then it’s a date.”

“But,” Yuuri says, pulse thrumming, gaze gliding slowly from Viktor’s stare, to his chest, to the glock in his hand. “You promised me dinner first.”

“—Достаточно,” Mila mutters sharply. “Vitya, you are finished with this, yes?” She motions with her pistol at the gobsmacked men seated around the hotel’s sectional. “Because if so, let me escort them out, so I may escape this ridiculous torture.”

The old man fumes, “We are _not_ leaving without—”

“Goodbye.” Viktor raises his empty hand in a smooth wave. “Have a safe trip back to… wherever it is you came from.”

Again, he catches Yuuri’s eye. Yuuri couldn’t look away if he tried. That unwavering, predatory gaze—that _hunger_ , insatiable and almost feral, sparks vivid and rich in Yuuri’s blood, shot directly into his veins by the glacier-blue of Viktor’s eyes.

The men leave at some point. So does Mila. As the door shuts, stranding Yuuri with this man—this dangerous, unpredictable, _beautiful_ man—Yuuri finds himself sweating; breathing through his mouth; settling his knees a little wider, as though straddling the floor.

It’s truly alarming how little it takes for Viktor to render him useless.

Yellow lights bounce off the nearby skyscrapers and emanate through the windows. Only a single lamp with a broad shade illuminates the rest of the room. It gives Viktor’s hair a slight golden sheen; it saturates the wine glass with an amber patina. Yuuri can see everything clearly, even in the dim—but his eyes still ache, and his head throbs, and the cold sweat starting a prickle between his shoulder-blades is probably the last of some drug seeping out of his system.

Yuuri takes a deep, silent breath, bracing himself. Whatever... _history_ he and Viktor share, this is no time to lose his cool, or his head. He doesn't truly know what Viktor is capable of, nor what his intentions are.

Even though, for now, Viktor is only staring at him.

He’s been doing quite a bit of that.

Some part of Yuuri—the stupid part—is thrilled by it. But another part of him is so uncomfortable and sour about the whole situation that he refuses to give Viktor anything interesting to look at.

So instead, Yuuri just stays still. Quiet.

After a few more seconds of watching him, Viktor exhales slowly through his nose. The glock—which he’d been holding loosely and casually, barrel pointed somewhere over his shoulder—he tosses aside, letting the gun bounce onto the other side of the couch and far out of reach.

But there is another, still holstered. Yuuri keeps silent.

“Eroshka,” Viktor says. Yuuri refuses to react to that voice—or that gaze, or those eyes; and especially at the easy, sumptuous way Viktor lounges into the couch. “You’re sulking.”

Yuuri frowns deeper. Looks away. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I am not sulking.”

“Then why won’t you look me in the eye?”

“Because I’m a prisoner,” Yuuri says. The area rug under the couch is a bit too garish for his tastes, a white shag design that looks like someone skinned a Yeti. “This is how a captive behaves.”

One of Viktor’s eyebrows quirks up. “You have a lot of experience with that?”

Yuuri’s mouth pinches even lower. He _doesn’t_ , actually, and the implication makes him prickle. “...So I’m told.”

“I see,” Viktor says, smirking. “Then, does that mean I’m your first?”

An indignant, burning flush swarms Yuuri’s cheeks. He resolutely keeps his eyes cast away and his mouth shut.

Viktor laughs. “ _Moy Eroshka,_ you are acting like such a—”

“I’m not yours,” Yuuri snaps back—too quickly; it sounds petty and defensive even to his own ears.

“No. You’re not mine,” Viktor says. His gaze softens; his smile becomes just a little bit more tender, as though remembering a sweet memory. “But you _are_ a sore loser.”

Yuuri’s face might as well be aflame. Even though Viktor is making fun of him, there’s a gentleness in the man’s demeanor—in the shine of his eyes; in the smooth cadence of his tone—that’s so unbalancing, so inexplicable, that Yuuri’s jaw clenches and his fingers tense into sloppy, restless fists.

He has no idea how to respond to this. He’s not even sure what _day_ it is.

Uncertainty and lack of awareness—the worst enemy of any good agent—make Yuuri’s voice smaller, his presence more timid as he can’t help but ask: “Will you kill me?”

Viktor frowns, then blinks, seeming taken aback. “Why on earth would I do that?”

Yuuri can’t rest his weight entirely on his feet; Viktor might notice the pen still stashed in his left pocket. He wants to stand, but he’s not sure what will happen if he does. “Because you want revenge. I’m at your mercy. And… we’re enemies. Aren’t we?”

Viktor sets his chin on one curled hand. His head tilts slightly as he considers Yuuri, a hint of a bemused smile curling onto his lips. “Is that what you like?”

His voice, a deep purr, jolts heat all the way down to Yuuri’s fingertips. Yuuri shakes his head once—hard enough to try and rattle some sense back into his skull. “No,” he replies, lowering his eyes. “I don’t.”

Another long, silent moment of consideration. Then: “I know that look.”

Yuuri stays silent.

“It seems so sincere,” Viktor says, and huffs a bit under his breath. “This bashful, uncertain act of yours. It makes you seem so afraid and vulnerable. But you’re not.”

Wrong. Yuuri is afraid all the time. All he ever does is act according to his training, his instincts, and his absolute best efforts; then, every single time, he’s shocked and bewildered that it actually _worked_.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Viktor says. “In fact, I’d hoped for a far better reception than this. It’s been… a difficult night, to put it mildly.”

Yuuri looks back to Viktor, facing forward.

“That syndicate was newly formed and inexperienced. They needed someone with the proper muscle and practice to bolster them up as they got established and fended off rivals; someone who could offer them protection. And I needed contacts in Shanghai. It seemed like an ideal match.”

Yuuri rises to a slow, careful stand.

“But now, apparently, I’m no longer allowed in Shanghai, and I’ve just tossed a very promising business opportunity out the window.”

Yuuri approaches Viktor one step at a time—each footfall slow, purposeful, and silent. “No, you didn’t.”

“Well, Mila certainly led them out by gunpoint,” Viktor grumbles. “If that doesn’t say, ‘we’re moving in a different direction,’ then I don’t know what does. And Shanghai is an excellent market—”

“Yes, it is,” Yuuri says. “But not with them. They were too fussy. Too skittish.”

Viktor blinks in surprise. A short laugh escapes his lips, soft as a sigh. “You’re right. I can’t really say I was looking forward to the partnership. Especially not after all the time I just spent with them—coddling and bickering and comforting, for hours on end.” As he watches Yuuri come closer, his head tilts a little further. “Though, in their defense… someone _did_ just kill one of their own.”

“Viktor,” Yuuri says. He stops where he’s just out of reach. “Let’s stop pretending those men were anything more than a means to an end.”

Viktor recognizes what he’s up to immediately. “ _Yuu_ -ri—”

“I don’t know what you expect,” Yuuri interrupts. He keeps his voice soft and measured. “I won’t fall into your lap again.”

Viktor pouts. “Are you sure? I’m told it’s quite comfortable.”

Yuuri swats the hand that reaches towards him; gives Viktor a warning look. “Tell me how you learned my name.”

A sharp sigh. “Really? This is what you want to talk about?”

“It’s a professional concern.”

“Fine. I’ll tell you,” Viktor says. Smirks. “If you come closer.”

Yuuri considers—then takes a step back. “I guess I don’t really need to know—”

“ _Ah_ , well, you see, the road to finding you was long and bumpy. A very boring story. It started with the forged paperwork you so _helpfully_ left in my briefcase, then the Bolshoi ballet-master, and eventually to your friend. The one whose phone I took.”

Yuuri takes another step forward. “The one who is safe in Chicago.”

Viktor places a single hand over his heart. “On my mother’s honor.”

As Yuuri steps into the gap between Viktor’s knees—the smooth fabric of the hotel pajamas hissing against the fine wool of Viktor’s slacks—he gives the man a mild, questioning look. “Is your mother honorable?”

“No, actually. She wasn’t.” Viktor’s hands slide onto Yuuri’s back, pulling him closer in. “I guess I should swear on something else, something even more important. On the health of my dog.”

Yuuri goes with the pull, falling towards Viktor’s chest. He presses one hand softly into the man’s sternum—

And with the other, he slips the glock from its holster.

The barrel of the gun indents Viktor’s left cheek. Neither Viktor’s gaze nor grip falter in the slightest.

“You let your guard down too easily,” says Yuuri.

That soft smile dances along Viktor’s lips. “For you? Always.”

But before Yuuri can even begin to form a sentence, Viktor’s eyes slide shut. He rolls his cheek against the glock slowly, rubbing against it like a cat. That smile is still beautiful and unbroken as it falls onto the gun’s tip, pressing a tender, delicate kiss against the cold, unforgiving metal.

Yuuri gasps, all the breath wrenched from his throat.

“Stop that,” he whispers thinly.

“Hm?” Viktor mumbles, wine-tinted mouth pressing more warm kisses into the gun’s barrel.

“This— _that_.” Yuuri’s lips fall apart; his mouth has gone utterly dry.

Viktor’s mouth is wet and relaxed as it glides up the glock’s shaft—slowly engulfing it from tip to trigger.

“ _Viktor_ ,” Yuuri strangles out—and yanks Viktor back with a strong tug to the hair. “Have you lost your mind? I told you to _stop_. We can’t do this again.”

“Of course we can.” Viktor runs his hands up the outside of Yuuri’s thighs, stopping them at his hips. His eyebrow quirks up. “Is that a pen, or are you just happy to see me?”

 _That_ , ridiculously, is what spurs Yuuri into furious motion. “Hands off. On your knees.”

Viktor looks quite satisfied with the order, sliding from the couch and onto the floor smoothly.

The moment he’s down, Yuuri jams the gun back into his face. “You’ve been tracking me down,” he says. “You found out I was targeting that man, tried to hold him hostage, then took me prisoner. You drugged me. You even found out my _name_.”

“Right, on all counts,” Viktor replies. There’s a sort of sing-song quality in his voice, pleased. “Though you never made any of it easy.”

“But _why?”_ Yuuri has to resist the urge to raise his voice in sheer, frustrated bewilderment. “If you won’t take your revenge, then—do you just want to fuck me again?”

“Yuuri,” Viktor replies, looking up at him quizzically. "You can’t be so dim."

Yuuri stares. Blinks.

"I have been trying to _date_ you.”

Yuuri keeps staring down at Viktor, wide-eyed and astonished.

“Openly. Multiple times now. I could not have made my intentions more clear.”

Viktor looks quite handsome (and oddly unperturbed) with a gun at his forehead. On the one hand, considering how obviously unhinged this man is—he put the _gun_ in his _mouth_ —Yuuri could maybe believe that Viktor is just this ridiculous, this nonsensical. But on the other, the idea that anyone would go through such trouble for _him_ , just to _date him_ , is the most ludicrous thing Yuuri has ever heard. It’s simply unbelievable.

“Most people don’t even remember what you look like,” Viktor says, a rapt glimmer in his eye. “I followed your work for months. Even though it took some time to catch up with you, it was always so obvious to me where you had been. The calling cards were so clear; the work was so clean. But to most people, once you’re through with them, you don’t even exist. It's as though you're invisible.” Viktor laughs; shakes his head ruefully. “But not to me, Eroshka. Ever since I first saw you, on that perfect night in Glace Noire… I’ve never been able to look away.”

The gun rests just above Viktor’s nose. It bumps his bridge as Viktor leans into it, trying to ease forward, get closer.

Yuuri takes a staggering step back. He whispers, “You're serious.”

Viktor says nothing. Just kisses the end of the gun.

“You would be a terrible decision," Yuuri mumbles; Viktor's ministrations are so distracting that he barely even follows his own words. "You’re too—dangerous. Ruthless.”

Viktor’s eyes flit up sharply, as though to say: _So are you._

A horrific surge of red, simmering lust blazes through Yuuri’s mind as he thinks: _I could do it._ It would be so easy to pull the trigger. It would be simple, just as effortless as striking down that man on the operahouse balcony. And the blood on that poor fool’s hands surely pales in comparison to Viktor’s—those long, elegant, pale fingers that _must_ have killed before, countless times; just as certainly as they were inside Yuuri, stretching him open and stroking from within, all those months ago on a dark and icy night in Moscow.

Viktor knows that Yuuri could do it. He’s _seen_ Yuuri do it before.

But Viktor is clever. Conniving. He’s gotten this far, after all.

“I don’t think there are any bullets in here,” Yuuri says quietly.

Viktor holds his gaze unflinchingly—glacier-blue to night-brown—with an expression that says: _Then why don’t you do it?_

Yuuri bites his lip until his eyes water. Viktor is bluffing. He _must_ be. Regardless, Yuuri’s hand shakes; his finger, curled along the trigger, twitches and trembles. Finally, he drags the gun away from Viktor’s mouth, swings it towards the couch, braces his feet—

And fires the glock, a torrent of bullets roaring into the white-silence of the room.

In the ensuing, ringing hush, there are only soft sounds: the toppled wine bottle dripping all over the floor, fat plops of burgundy flowing into the white shag rug. Plumes of loosened couch cushion flicking into the dim, gunpowder-scented air. The lethargic _zzt_ of the single lamp going dead, its wire grazed in a random bullet’s hectic path.

Viktor’s soft hum as he assesses the damage.

"Wow.” A dry chuckle. “We won't be welcome here again. Good thing I'm already banned from ever returning to Shangha—”

Yuuri kisses him forcefully, both hands screwed into the white fabric over Viktor’s chest.

“You’re insane,” Yuuri hurries out, pushing Viktor back and climbing into his lap like a parched man at an oasis. “You’ve absolutely lost your fucking mind—”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” Viktor says, the words wet between them and fragmented by the repeated press of their mouths.

“You did _not_ ,” Yuuri insists—yet he can’t stop kissing him, or touching him all over, or clenching Viktor’s hair between his sweat-slickened fingers.

“I told you,” Viktor teases, breathless, “you clearly—have a— _thing_ for me.”

Yuuri doesn’t bother responding to that. Both his palms flatten and his fingers splay apart as he shoves at Viktor’s clothing, yanking his shirt away from his slacks, parting the buttons, unzipping his fly. The heat between their bodies is new, yet familiar; it’s exactly the warmth and urgency and charge that Yuuri craved, thinking of Viktor over all their months apart. Viktor smiles against his mouth, as though he _knows_ , delighted and perhaps a little smug.

Yuuri revels in the sensation of Viktor’s broad, elegant hands against his cheek, on the back of his neck. His blood thrums to a higher tempo as Viktor’s grip moves lower, pulling their bodies tighter together.

But suddenly, one hand is unaccounted for, drifting off and away from Yuuri’s back.

The glock is at their sides, warm and inert on the floor.

Yuuri nips Viktor’s lip.

“Trust me, Eroshka,” Viktor mutters against his mouth.

When Viktor’s hand falls atop the gun—when Yuuri _lets_ it, not even a hint concerned for his freedom or bodily integrity—he finally has to accept that he has utterly and completely lost.

Viktor flicks the gun away so it skims across the floor, bumping to a stop against an end table. Right as he does, the door from the hallway swings open and hits the wall with a _blam_. Little Yuri, in all his furious glory, appears in the doorway—yet he doesn’t look so much furious as he does wide-eyed and terrified, probably (and sweetly) thinking the worst after he heard the claps of gunshots.

When he sees the truth—Yuuri atop Viktor, straddling his leg; Viktor’s other leg in Yuuri’s left hand, pushed high to spread Viktor wide—the poor boy almost ruptures a blood vessel.

The door slams shut on Yuri’s scream of disgusted agony.

Viktor slides both arms up and around Yuuri’s shoulders. “Don’t worry; he’s fine. He just never knocks.”

Yuuri presses a kiss to the side of Viktor’s mouth. “He’ll have to learn.”

A full, joyous grin alights on Viktor’s face. Yuuri can barely look at him for even a second before the sight is too vivid to bear; he bends down to hide and kiss at Viktor’s throat, but a lightness has struck his chest, one that he doesn’t think he can identify quite yet.

Viktor’s leg wraps around Yuuri tightly, dragging him closer in. He’s fully hard, bulge straining from the open fly of his charcoal slacks. A half-smile, half-smirk winds onto Yuuri’s mouth—but he doesn’t touch Viktor yet. Instead, he only asks: “How long have you been like this?”

Viktor doesn’t answer.

Yuuri slides a palm from Viktor’s knee to the top of his inner thigh, lessening the pressure and halting his hand just before he reaches Viktor’s cock.

“Mm,” Viktor lets out—a small, needy sound; it’s the sweetest thing Yuuri has ever heard. “I’ve been—half-hard since you just. Walked towards me.”

“Are you that easy?” Yuuri asks, his tone conversational as he runs a single, feather-light fingertip along the line of Viktor’s erection.

“For you,” Viktor admits—his leg pulling Yuuri closer; his crotch lifting a little higher, desperately seeking pressure. “For you, yes, I am—”

Viktor moans as Yuuri finally drags a hand along his erection, painstakingly slow. His expression in that moment is rapturous, gorgeous; enough that Yuuri has to stare in mild awe. “I could do this for hours,” he mutters under his breath.

“No,” Viktor says firmly. His heel digs into Yuuri’s lower back; his hands maneuver into the front of Yuuri’s pants, trying to draw out his cock. “I want you now.”

“Eager,” Yuuri mumbles.

“Of course,” Viktor replies. An edge of frustration tints his tone. “Haven’t we waited long enough?”

The realization that he hasn’t been alone—that Viktor, like him, has remembered and replayed and wondered, listless during all these months apart—strikes low and deep in Yuuri’s belly. Truthfully, he knew that Viktor had been tracking him. All this time, he knew that Viktor thought of him, was aware of him, and wanted to find him again.

But he never imagined that the reality could be like this.

Their cocks pressed together. Viktor’s arms gripping him tightly, his voice resounding and gasping beautifully in Yuuri’s ear. Viktor’s legs falling open for him, under the push of Yuuri’s greedy hands; Viktor’s neck red, bitten raw, and starting to bruise under the clench of Yuuri’s teeth.

Yuuri rolls his hips against Viktor’s in a harsh, slow drag.

“Please,” Viktor breathes out. “ _Ah_ —Eroshka—”

Yuuri shoves their bodies together hard enough to push Viktor along the floor. Viktor’s shirt is splayed open to reveal his chest, a blush splotching pink from his neck to his nipples; below, their cocks slide together, lubricated only with precum and a hurried swipe of Yuuri’s spit.

“Like that?” Yuuri asks, even though he knows the answer; keeps eliciting it with every forceful drag of his hips.

Viktor says nothing—only moans, lips bitten-dark and ajar against the bulk of Yuuri’s shoulder.

But that won’t do. Yuuri nestles his mouth against Viktor’s ear as he whispers, “Тебе это нравится?”

Viktor obviously knows when he’s being teased. “No,” he says petulantly, giving Yuuri a pout—though the effect is softened by the glowing flush on his face. “I want it wetter.”

Yuuri grins. He seizes Viktor’s hand, brings it to his own mouth, and tongues his palm, laving saliva between the man’s fingers. Viktor’s mouth falls open at the sight.

Then he drags Viktor’s hand down between them, pressing it against where their cocks are joined.

“Hold on tight,” Yuuri says.

Viktor captures him in another hurried, frantic kiss.

As their bodies move together, Yuuri easily gets lost in the blazing, escalating tension. Yet another part of him—the part that is trained as a spy and a killer—takes careful catalogue of the way Viktor looks beneath him. He notes how the city lights pour through the broad hotel windows, illuminating them both in the saturated yellow-pink-white of urban night. He watches the pale shimmer of saliva at the corner of Viktor’s mouth, and the swiftly darkening blush on Viktor’s cheeks, neck, and upper chest.

The way Viktor easily surrenders to him, eager and spread wide and breathlessly pleading, sparks a firestorm in Yuuri’s veins. It has him touching Viktor tenderly, and kissing as often as he bites.

Viktor gasps, high and short, in Yuuri’s ear. “Eroshka—I’m close; so close—”

“Good,” Yuuri says. He plants one palm against the floor next to Viktor’s head, propping himself up; he wants the best view possible as Viktor falls apart beneath him.

Viktor’s breath hitches higher, faster, more sporadic—

“Come for me, Vitya.”

Yuuri can see in Viktor’s neck the way his pulse stutters, his bruised and tensed-tight body pulsing its way through a long, breathless orgasm.

After he comes, the weight of Viktor’s arms descends even heavier around Yuuri’s neck. “Yuuri,” he whispers, needy, breathy. “Yuuri….”

“Beautiful,” Yuuri whispers.

Viktor pushes a sloppy, grateful kiss onto his pulse-point. “I want you to finish.”

Yuuri catches Viktor’s swollen mouth in another full, wet kiss. They separate after a few moments of luxurious mingling; then Yuuri smiles. “How?”

“My mouth,” Viktor says, quiet, almost slurring. “I know you’ve been staring at it. You like it.”

Yuuri doesn’t deny it. Only watches Viktor’s face, gaze unbroken and hungry in the dark.

“Please.” Viktor strokes his shaky, elegant fingers along Yuuri’s hard cock. “I’ll make it good for you.”

“I know you will,” Yuuri whispers. He shifts onto his knees, placing Viktor even lower beneath him.

As Yuuri’s bare cock reaches his face, Viktor’s eyes go half-lidded. His mouth—pink, wine-stained, bitten-dark—goes slack, an open sleeve for Yuuri to enter. Even his hands are languid and weak as they cling to the back of Yuuri’s pants.

When Yuuri slides his cock into Viktor’s welcoming mouth, Viktor doesn’t struggle. There’s not even a hint of a choke. It’s as though his body is entirely resigned to the task—only a warm, wet, greedy hole for Yuuri to use and fuck into as he pleases.

So he does.

His cock slides into Viktor’s mouth vigorously, slamming his throat, working the man’s mouth until drool runnels from Viktor’s pretty lips to his chin and down his neck. As his face is fucked—and as his breathing is surely hampered, Yuuri’s cock filling him, his balls tapping the end of Viktor’s chin—Viktor seems at peace, even blissful; his eyes glaze over and his muscles all but melt into the hotel’s gaudy white-shag rug.

That expression of satisfaction, resignation, hurtles Yuuri towards his own climax. “Viktor,” he whispers, his tone undeniably of praise, “Oh god—Viktor, _Viktor—_ ”

Yuuri gasps as he spills down Viktor’s throat, hips stuttering and twitching against his face.

Viktor’s fingers hook into Yuuri’s flesh as he moans—already satiated, yet still pleading for more.

Yuuri shudders as he plants both hands on the floor, straight-armed with elbows locked, trying in vain to catch his breath. Viktor, also panting, lies back on the floor. There’s a cloudy, peaceful look in his eye, as though having his face fucked has put everything right with the world. His hands are limp where they fell, one on the floor and one atop his own bared and cum-wet stomach.

Yuuri puts his cock back in his pants. Takes a few deep, bracing breaths. He considers, for a moment, getting up—to do _what_ , he doesn’t know; he vaguely recalls that there was something he’d been meaning to do, or somewhere he’d been trying to go, but whatever it was has completely vacated his brain.

Instead, he shifts his knees again to straddle Viktor’s—then all but topples right on top of him.

Viktor’s arms rise to encompass his panting form, palms sliding from Yuuri’s upper arms to his back. A soft kiss falls onto the top of his head.

For some vague stretch of time, they revel in the afterglow. But soon enough, slowly but surely, Yuuri's mind begins to return to him.

“When do we go?” Yuuri half-mumbles, half-slurs into Viktor’s chest.

“Hm?”

“To Barcelona.” Yuuri tilts his head to look up at Viktor, cheek still resting against the man's chest. “I assume you’ve already booked the flight.”

A bright, delighted smile curls onto Viktor’s face. “It departs at 2:40 PM.”

Yuuri huffs a soft laugh. “First class?”

“Oh, Eroshka,” Viktor says, brushing Yuuri’s sweat-damp hair aside to kiss his forehead. “You know me so well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Murder husbands! Organized crime power couple! That's what it's all about, my dudes!!
> 
> About this verse's Yuuri: I didn't want him to just be a spy, but more like a mercenary, doing whatever jobs Minako gave him. She's his boss, btw. She recruited and trained him (and Phichit too!). Minako and her agents aren't affiliated with one specific government, though they might do a job for a government here and there.
> 
> About this verse's Viktor: it was absolutely crucial that he be both a bitch AND a thot. I think I succeeded.
> 
> This is the end of the verse's main storyline. I doubt I'll ever post something for this verse again - it just takes me SO LONG to finish anything for it; this story is REALLY hard for me to write - but if I did, it would just be a short extra here or there. For example: the scene of Viktor trying to interrogate Phichit, or some epilogue scenes of Viktor and Yuuri being a flirty, lovey-dovey, trigger-happy couple. Subscribe if you want notifications for that kinda thing.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Leave a comment if you'd like; I treasure each and every one!


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